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Chinese Scammers Take Mattel To the Bank, Phishing Them For $3 Million (www.cbc.ca)
itwbennett quotes a report from The Associated Press: Mattel, the popular toy maker behind Barbie and Hot Wheels, was the victim of a phishing attack last year that nearly cost them $3 million. On April 30, 2015, a Mattel finance executive got a note from the new CEO, Christopher Sinclair, requesting a new vendor payment to China. Transfers required approval from two high-ranking managers; the finance exec qualified and so did the CEO. The transfer was made. The only thing preventing a total loss was the fact that the following day was a bank holiday. Details of the attack against Mattel come from a report by the Associated Press, investigating money laundering and other financial crime in Wenzhou, China.
It would be reversible...if the money stayed in the destination account.
However, what they do is then split the money into many, many accounts, and keep moving it, travelling the world until it's laundered enough to recover.
As each account would require a court order to disclose what happened to the money in it, and different countries have different requirements to disclose and different languages, by the time they've chased down the money, it's already moved on - so they just don't bother.
Yeah, but China isn't just any country. This isn't Romania. There are tons of controls on international transactions. Otherwise there would be a giant sucking sound for a month or two and China would be empty of funds. Nobody trusts Chinese banks, especially Chinese banks. This is why property is always super-hot in China and prices everyone out of the market - there's really nowhere else to invest money.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
To be fair, if this transaction quantity and type is something you deal with regularly, you can see how you might become lax in your procedures.
No excuse, to be sure. But I have sympathy for them.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
. . . .that the "finance executive" is no longer employed by Mattel ?? I note that in all the reports, this executive is carefully not named. . .
In Mattel they don't kid around with failure. Not only you're "disappeared", they even continue de proud tradition of Damnatio memoriae, by which they delete every single mention to your name. Just as Horemheb tried to do with Akhenaten.
The pyramids were made by successively piling lego shaped rocks. Lego, the direct competence of Mattel! Coincidence? I think not.
From the Article
"Two days later, the money was recovered."
So the semantics from the summary were correct and it is the title is somewhat inaccurate or at least misleading.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
The first wave of people to immigrate are the people seeking education.
The Puritans came to America not to escape from religious persecution in Europe but to learn how to grow corn from the Native Americans?
Perhaps you should meta moderate more?
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
Our finance department gets this often, for realistic sums, and we do a lot of business with China. We now have a policy that these transfers must be authorized in person.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.