The Fake Vacation Email That Could Drain Your Bank Account

A new wave of scam emails is exploiting a summer staple: the out-of-office message. What looks like a routine vacation notification is, in a growing number of cases, a carefully engineered attempt to drain your business bank account.

How the Scam Works

Attackers monitor for auto-reply messages revealing when an executive is traveling, then send a spoofed email - appearing to come from that executive - to a finance employee. The message typically requests an urgent wire transfer, citing limited connectivity as the reason a phone call isn't possible.

Why the Scam Is So Convincing

• •It uses a real name, a real title, and often a real writing style pulled from previous public emails or social media.
• •It exploits urgency and unavailability - two things that short-circuit normal verification habits.
• •It targets employees who are conditioned to be responsive to executive requests, especially during time-sensitive situations.

Red Flags to Train Your Team On

1. Any request for a wire transfer or banking change that arrives only by email, with no phone call.
2. Pressure to act "before I lose cell service" or "before end of day, no exceptions."
3. Slightly altered email domains that look correct at a glance but aren't.
4. Requests that bypass your normal approval process, even slightly.

The Fix Is Procedural, Not Technical

No amount of email filtering fully stops a well-crafted impersonation. The real defense is a strict policy: no financial transaction proceeds without verbal confirmation through a known phone number, regardless of how urgent or convincing the email appears.

Veracity Technologies trains Minneapolis-St. Paul finance teams to recognize and shut down exactly this kind of social engineering attack before it reaches your bank account.