San Francisco litigators David Reidy and Ali Baiardo’s column on prudent steps clients can take if their businesses or their customers fall prey to a telephone spoofing scam was featured as an “Expert Analysis” by Law360.
Telephone spoofing is the use of software to falsify the true number from which a call originates and instead represent the number on the recipient’s caller identification as being from a trusted source to trick people out of sensitive information.
In one recent scam, a fraudster mimicked calls from the Internal Revenue Service, convinced the recipient that there was a problem with his income tax return, and sought a Social Security number and date of birth. In another, a caller who appeared to be from a computer software company told a victim a virus had compromised her computer and that it could be fixed only if she opened an email sent by the caller.
Businesses also fall prey when spoofers — sometimes competitors — harass customers and try to undermine the company’s brand.
The column, titled “5 Things You Should Know About Telephone Spoofing,” lists commonsense steps that lawyers can recommend to clients affected by spoofers, including executing a public relations and social media effort to let customers know the company isn’t behind the spoofed calls, training employees to know about scams, showing employees how to respond to calls from affected customers, and sharing the experience with others in the industry.
Law360 subscribers can read the column here.