Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona is issuing an urgent scam alert cautioning businesses and consumers about an email that is purporting to be from BBB about a complaint concerning an “unauthorized transaction.”

The email contains the following text:

“Dear business owner, we have obtained several complaints via the Better Business Bureau online complaint center concerning several unauthorized transaction from a number of private bank accounts to your corporate account. You can view the complaints in our online complaint center using the following link: (link deleted by BBB).”

Some consumers and business report receiving upwards of 50 of these emails in the past 24 hours. The email contains a dangerous link and bogus sign in information. This is a scam – BBB does not accept or send complaints concerning private financial transactions with a bank.

Should you receive such an email, please disregard its message, and forward any information received to phishing@council.bbb.org, and then delete it.  If you have clicked on the link, immediately do a virus scan.

Better Business Bureau of Southern Arizona is issuing an urgent scam alert cautioning Accredited Businesses about an email that is purporting to be from a bbb.org email address about a recently filed complaint.

The email contains a malicious link that appears to direct recipients to BBB’s website. This is a scam. If you receive an email from BBB concerning a complaint there will be no attachment, and the senders email address will always be info@tucson.bbb.org.

The newest email appears to come from a fake BBB employee, and a fake BBB email address- risk.manager@bbb.org- claiming that a complaint has been filed against the business and they have 14 days to respond to it.

From there, the email appears to direct the recipient to BBB’s website, but actually directs them to an outside link. This email is fraudulent and does not originate from BBB. The email attachment and link are malicious and we are strongly advising anyone who receives the email to not open or click them.

Should you receive such an email, please disregard its message and forward it to phishing@council.bbb.org. If you have clicked on the link, immediately do a virus scan. BBB lawyers are working to find out who is behind this and will take all appropriate action to protect its trademark.

Consumers nationwide, including Tucson, are reporting a new round of phishing email scams using the BBB name and email address. Some of the new emails appear to be targeting accountants.

Consumers report that many of the latest scam emails use a BBB.org email address in conjunction with the American Institute of CPAs logo and name. The message informs recipients that their CPA license is being terminated due to tax fraud allegations and encourages them to click on a link and reply to the charges. The link leads to a third party website that downloads a virus on to the recipient’s computer.

Other scam emails appear to come from a fake BBB employee claiming that the recipient needs to review a complaint that has been filed against them, and advise BBB of their position. From there, the email appears to direct the recipient to the BBB website, but actually directs them to a fraudulent outside link.
This email scam primarily targets accountants, but BBB has received reports of other professionals receiving the emails.

Steps to take:

• Do not reply or click on the link in the email
• Forward fake BBB emails to phishing@council.bbb.org
• Delete the email
• I you clicked on any of the links run a virus scan on your computer

This is the latest iteration in a recent outbreak of scams using the BBB name. For more information about other versions of the scam, please see the following articles:

• Scammers Pick Up the Phone in New Twist on BBB Phishing Scam
• Watch Out for New Wave of Fake BBB.org Emails
• Malicious Complaint Email Claiming It’s From BBB