10/11/2019
This will be a semi long post. As you read it please note that we were NOT compromised because of the measures we took when dealing with this client. We are in contact with authorities and one suggestion they had was to post something to make others aware of what happened to us.
PAS Accounting & Tax Services, Inc. recently has gone through an issue that right now looks to be a scam/fraudulent activity using our services.
Shortly after putting up our web site we were contacted to help a client/business run a "movie training project" with bookkeeping here in Minnesota. Along the way there were several flags that made us suspicious of what we were being told and asked to do for the project. We being the typical "Minnesota nice" company, gave the benefit of the doubt to this client and moved forward to help them, believing that they were just a small business owner being an entrepreneur to make their mark on this world. PAS Accounting deals a lot with small one person businesses. One of the things in this project we were asked to do was to run the finances through our business account (red flag).
The short of the story is, we received funds that we deposited and were asked to wire out funds later in the week to pay for a vendor activity (almost the exact amount available at the time, red flag). As we were working through doing the wire, we come to find out that the funds that were deposited earlier had been stopped. We only knew this because we were dealing directly with the bank on the day the funds were due to be released. If we had not put in roadblocks along the way because of our suspicions we had we would have been out the funds, about $5k.
After this we have been looking into the website and other connections to the client, and some of them have been removed or no responses. Which points us to a scam/fraud situation.
Again, we want others to be assured that there has been NO compromise to client data. We are continuing to investigate the situation.
Please be always vigilant of what people are asking you to do in business or your personal lives. And if something smells or looks fishy, go with your gut and take precautions.