Via LexBlog
Update 9/8/2025:
The State Bar of Texas has received several reports of Texas attorneys being targeted by wire transfer fraud schemes.
In one instance, a significant settlement almost turned into $10 million stolen. As the attorney was close to funding the cash portion of a settlement, opposing counsel received a fake email from someone who created a very similar email address to the attorney’s asking for the remainder to be wired. The scammers had known about a confidential eight-figure settlement. The attorney’s colleague said he would check with the insurance carriers and ultimately that a wire could be made. Fortunately, the scammers made a mistake when they sent the attorney an email, and the attorney picked up on an irregularity. When the attorney called the number with a 713 area code they were given as the bank’s phone number, the scammers called the attorney back from Nigeria. The scammers knew so much detail about the case—they re-created signature blocks, and their wiring instructions looked legitimate. Thankfully their effort at a scam was stopped. The attorney cautioned others to be extremely careful when wiring settlement proceeds.
In another instance, an attorney had the same thing happen but caught it within days of funding. Using what appeared to be a client’s email address that differed by only one letter, the scammers asked the attorney to change the wiring instructions at the last minute. The attorney called the client to verify and was able to avoid the scam.
Another attorney almost had the same thing happen and was within a day or two of sending the money, when thankfully, the opposing counsel called about something else. The attorney mentioned they had the opposing counsel’s wire transfer information, to which the opposing counsel said they never email wire transfer information. That attorney’s policy now is to only send a wire after having a phone call with someone they know to verify the information.
A different attorney was able to dodge being scammed. The scammer posed as a new client with a $100,000 contract claim that they had made look real. But the attorney knew something was off, and they found similar discrepancies in email addresses mentioned by other targets of these types of scams.
At a cybersecurity seminar one attorney attended, they were told about a hacking incident that involved a law firm that routinely handled high-dollar real estate transactions. The hackers were monitoring email, and that is how they knew when a transaction was ready to close and fund. The scammers sent an email to redirect a wire transfer. Because the scammers had been monitoring, they knew enough details to be very dangerous, and the scam worked. If an attorney is public about the high-dollar settlements their firm is handling, they may be an attractive target.
Attorneys who shared their stories offered tips to help avoid these scams:
- Always call to confirm wire instructions. Scammers are sophisticated and know attorneys hold cash in transit, and they are ready to jump on it. Emails are easy to hack and are not secure. Wire and ACH information should never be shared over email.
- Scammers are now using voice cloning technology to sound like someone involved in the case, so be wary of that as well.
- Have an IT security team investigate anything suspicious.
- Always be vigilant.
Update 12/5/2024: We received a report of another scam. A Texas attorney was the target of a similar scam to one we reported on June 28, 2022. The attorney received an email from a company purporting to be “Tradicion 925 Sa De Cv” seeking to engage their law firm in a matter involving HBS Systems, Inc. In the initial email, the scammer stated, “I am Martin Arturo and I am the CEO at TRADICION 925 SA DE CV .My company would like to have a discussion with your firm about a potential business pre-litigation regarding a breach of license agreement, kindly respond if this is something in your wheelhouse and I will send a more detailed description about the case. I await your response.” The attorney replied and then received a more detailed follow up email along with a license agreement and settlement agreement. The attorney did some research and found that we had reported on a similar scam in which the scammer referenced needing help dealing with a legal issue regarding an “HBS Systems” and let us know that that scam appears to still be active in some form.
Update 7/10/2024: We received a report of another scam. Yesterday, multiple Texas attorneys received a phishing scam email purporting to be from State Bar of Texas President Steve Benesh with a fake email address of steve.benesh@member-texasbar.com. This is not a legitimate email. Please delete it. Here is a copy of the email:
Attn: _______
By way of introduction, my name is Steve Benesh, President, State Bar of Texas. This is a follow up on the attached confidential request for ________ which was sent directly to you last week.
Please let me know if you didn’t receive the earlier email and I’ll resend it.
State Bar of Texas (TEXASBAR)
Period: July 2024
Published Date: 3rd July 2024
Due Date: 11th July 2024
Thank you in advance,
Steve,
Steve Benesh
President
State Bar of Texas
1414 Colorado Street
Austin, Texas 78701
Update 5/9/2024: We received a report of another scam. A Texas attorney was contacted by someone asking for help with enforcing terms of a settlement agreement with their former employer after suffering injury on the job, claiming negligence and wrongful termination, and stating that the employer refuses to pay them. The scammer included many sophisticated-looking but fabricated supporting documents. Some of the red flags that stood out about the scam are that the employment contract is signed by former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, one of the signatures on another document is of a prominent businessman that the attorney found with a reverse image search, and the plaintiff’s signature was spelled incorrectly.
Update 10/16/23: We received a report that a law firm in Arizona had an attempted scam perpetrated on them that is identical to the scam we reported from a Texas attorney on October 5. The Arizona firm waited for their bank’s notification that the check they received from the “debtor” was valid before issuing payment to “Groat Machinery, Inc.” The firm had also checked both businesses involved, and they appeared to be legitimate – the Arizona and Michigan Corporation Commissions had both entities listed as active and in good standing. However from the beginning, the firm’s legal assistant and partner thought the new “client” was suspicious.
Update 10/5/23: We received a report of another scam. An attorney was contacted by an out-of-state business1 asking for help in collecting a debt owed by a Texas customer2 of the business. When they asked how the business owner got their name, the scammer said he “was referred by the Texas State Bar Association Lawyer Referral Services.” The attorney did some online checking and found that both the potential client and the debtor appeared to be legitimate businesses. However, according to both the Texas Comptroller’s website and the Texas Secretary of State website, the debtor’s existence was voluntarily dissolved several years ago (the debtor’s last Public Information Report was filed in 2020). The attorney sent the potential client an engagement letter which was promptly signed and returned to them, but without the required retainer, saying that the owner had since contacted the debtor; the debtor was willing to pay the amount owed plus the attorney’s fee; and that the debtor would send a check for that amount to them. The attorney replied to the owner that the check should be made payable to the owner’s business and sent directly to him, out of which he could pay their fee, but that was ignored. Instead, a few days later, the attorney received an official check from the debtor drawn on Citibank, payable to them, for the full amount owed plus their fee.
The attorney held the check for about a day and was contacted by the owner asking whether they received the check. The attorney had been holding the check in order to verify that it was legitimate, having remembered a series of scams from several years ago where law firms had been duped into accepting official/certified checks from “debtors,” depositing those funds into their client trust accounts, remitting the funds less the attorney’s fees to the creditor, and then finding out that the checks were bogus. The attorney contacted Citibank customer service to verify the check. There was no such account number. They sent an email to the owner telling him about their findings and giving him the Citibank customer service phone number so that he could verify their information. The attorney called the phone number provided by the “owner,” and it is disconnected. They also tried calling several other phone numbers listed online for that business, but they too were disconnected. They checked the corporate status of the business and found that it is no longer operating. The attorney has not heard back from the owner, so they assume that they were the intended victim of a scam.
1 Groat Machinery, Inc.
39555 Orchard Hill Place
Novi, MI 48375
ATTN: Mr. James T. Groat, President
jamegroat3@gmail.com
2 Tartan Machinery Sales, Inc., allegedly a Texas corporation (but not listed as such with the TXSOS; rather as Tartan Machinery Sales, LLC)
24501 Hufsmith Kohrville Rd.
Tomball, Texas 77375
Update 12/9/22: We received a report of more scams. An attorney was targeted by three scams. In the first scam, someone used the attorney’s firm’s web submission form and claimed to be a former employee who has never been paid an agreed and signed severance by a big company, which the scammer claimed was John Deere. The “client” communicated with the attorney’s paralegal. When he sent the alleged John Deere separation agreement, it had some strange wording, and the letterhead looked off. The attorney decided it likely was a scam. The second scam was one where the attorney emailed quite a bit with a woman who claimed to be a doctor who had worked in Houston but now was living in Singapore. The attorney asked her to do a Zoom call, and she refused. Then they realized it was a scam that might play out by there being an exchange of bank info or something to that effect. The third scam happened after the attorney went to Europe. Someone was able to get into their email system when they were there from their use of phone or laptop. The scammer read through their emails and figured out who their paralegal was. Then the scammer sent emails to their paralegal as them, from their address, asking that they send out a check to a P.O. Box. After their paralegal received the emails, they were erased from the attorney’s own deleted and sent items. So they never knew the paralegal had received them, and the paralegal thought they were talking to the attorney. One check went out, but they spoke before the second one was sent, and insurance covered most of the first check. The attorney’s firm now uses a VPN so that all communications are protected.
Update 11/28/22: We received a report of another scam. An attorney received an email from her online profile on texasbar.com coming from a Gmail account that read: “I send you 700.00 dollars and you said that I can get 60,000 in a grant and it’s been eight hours. Haven’t seen nothing yet. I guess I have to call your law firm.” The attorney said later that day, she received a call from the scammer on her personal cell phone. The scammer said he spoke to the attorney several times the day before (November 27). The attorney told the scammer that he did not speak to the attorney and that the scammer had reached the attorney’s personal cell. To this, the scammer’s response was, “Sorry, thank you, my mistake.” He immediately hung up. The attorney said she is not sure how the caller obtained her phone number. The scammer’s phone number was 210-584-0452 and caller ID showed the scammer’s name as Kenneth Lewis. The attorney described the incident as “a little unnerving.” She believes the scammer was attempting to impersonate her.
Update 6/28/22: We received reports of two more scams. Scammers are emailing attorneys through their online profiles on texasbar.com as phishing attempts. One targeted attorney received an email that states,”Hi, I work with MCJ ASSETS, LLC. We are a new surplus funds business wanting to operate in Galveston County. We have all legal documents, sales tax, and clients ready! We will like to work with you. If you’re interested we will like to run ALL excess proceeds recoveries through you, which means constant business! We will like to offer 10% of our profit from the recoveries. We will have all the documents completed. All we need is you to look over the documents and file the claim.”
Another attorney reported an attempted scam on them and their firm in what appears to be an elaborate scheme. The attorney was contacted by “Mateo Santiago” of Four Tech Intelligence in Mexico. The original email said, “Hi There. I want to Inquire if your firm specializes in IP cases. Our corporation is seeking an attorney in your state who can represent us in a license infringement matter by a business partner of the corporation. Contact me if this is your area of expertise or if you can make a referral. Thanks.” The scammer claimed they had been doing business with a company named HBS Systems Inc. in Richardson (which the attorney called and verified is a real company), that HBS had violated a copyright on some software, had admitted to this, and had settled on $2.9 million as a settlement. The attorney was to write a demand letter, accept the payment in their bank account, and receive 5% of the proceeds. The attorney had sent the company their standard engagement agreement to sign, requested a retainer check, and gave them wiring instructions to their IOLTA account. In response, they received this email. The referenced “Bar Code Integrators” in the email appears to be another company they tried to scam. After the attorney received that email, they called HBS and spoke to someone in their accounting department and said they thought they were being scammed but were trying to confirm. They asked if they had done any business with a Mexican company named Four Tech Intelligence and asked if they owed them $2.9 million. A person there confirmed this had to be a scam and also said they knew that the CEO of HBS had received other scams, they had turned away all but one, and that the one was difficult to get out of.
Update 6/17/22: We received a report of another scam. A Texas attorney received an email from someone claiming to be representing a company and needing the attorney’s legal help to draft a sales and purchase agreement for an excavator. The person said they had already negotiated and agreed to sell the excavator to a buyer residing in the attorney’s state, which included the insurance cost, shipping, and handling cost. They said the buyer wanted the agreement to be governed by the laws of their state and sent details and attachments about the excavator and the agreed terms by both parties for the attorney’s review. The person said they came across the attorney’s website via online search and asked them to advise on their rate and retainer fee and to email their engagement letter for the person’s review and signature. The attachments they included appear very real. The attorney checked with the supposed buyer mentioned in the email, and they have no knowledge of the seller and said that there is not any such deal in the works. The attorney realized this is a scam.
Update 6/10/2022: We received a report of another scam. An attorney was referred a potential new client by another attorney who was called by that client about an employment issue. The client was claiming that he had entered a settlement agreement with a company because of a wrongful termination. The claim was he was asked by his supervisor to falsify some accounting records. He refused and was fired as a result. After blowing the whistle to HR, there was supposedly a settlement agreement reached.
The attorney was initially skeptical so asked the client to email them a copy of the settlement agreement. They reviewed the settlement agreement and it looked legitimate, as if the attorney had drafted it themselves. It was also specific to Texas in that it had a Texas choice of law provision. The attorney then signed up the client. They asked the client, as they usually do, to send them any and all prior correspondence he had with his former employer regarding the matter. The client produced emails showing a chain of emails wherein he requested payment and was given reasons why payment was being delayed.
After receiving the signed contract of representation, the attorney sent the company a presentment letter for breach of contract via regular mail and certified mail with a return receipt requested. They also emailed a copy of the letter to the contact the client was interacting with at the company. Soon after, the attorney received an email apologizing for the delay in payment and that payment would be sent soon. This did not seem odd given a 30-day clock was put in place for purposes of attorney’s fees. The attorney requested that payment be sent as soon as possible.
When put together, there were a few signs that alerted the attorney that something was off. First, the payment was sent overnight via a certified check. Second, the client was being cc’ed on emails sent by the company contact. Third, the day the attorney received and deposited the check, the client emailed and texted them asking if they received the check and deposited it. The client seeming to be eager to be paid and yet not having answered the attorney’s calls really put everything together for them. The attorney then reached out to the company to independently verify if the check that was sent, their client, and the contact they had for the company were real. The attorney received a follow up email from the company that the check was a fake and that their client and the supposed contact at the company never worked for them.
The attorney did not issue any checks, they notified their bank, and they reported the incident to the Houston Division of the Secret Service that is also looking into the matter.
Update: 10/7/2021: We received a report of another scam. A Texas attorney received a request from an alleged Japanese company who wanted him to draft a contract and close a deal with a company in Dallas. The attorney gave him the retainer amount, and the scammer deposited money into the attorney’s bank account in excess of the retainer. Then the scammer asked him to refund the additional funds. The attorney talked to his bank and found out that it was a fraudulent transaction that was actually pulled from another bank account with the same bank. The bank is refunding the other bank customer and advised the attorney to stop all communication with the scammer. Now, the scammer is threatening to cause trouble for the attorney by contacting the State Bar and by saying he is not in compliance with IOLTA requirements. The scammer even contacted the attorney’s parents and called his mother by name.
The attorney has filed a report with the police department, and he is also filing a report with the FBI. He contacted the State Bar of Texas Chief Disciplinary Counsel’s Office and has spoken to the State Bar Membership Dept., who made a note on his record in case something comes up in the future. They also recommended that he update his IOLTA information with the Texas Access to Justice Foundation and that he call them to explain the situation, in case anything comes of it later.
Update: 8/27/2021: We received a report of another scam. Read the scam email the attorney received.
Update 8/26/2021: We received a report of another scam similar to the one we reported on June 18 involving someone posing as Jack Martin Zahn Batiste. Read the full description of the scam as reported by the attorney.
Update 8/10/2021: We received reports of two more scams. One Texas attorney reported a scam where they appear to have been targeted via the contact information from their Find a Lawyer profile on TexasBar.com. The scammer claimed, “I am purchasing a used excavator in your State and the purchase agreement requires your services, I want to know if you can provide closing service for this purchase.” Upon further review of the email exchange, the attorney determined this was a scam.
Another Texas attorney received what turned out to be a variation on the check/wire scam in which the scammer wants the attorney to wire settlement money to them before the check clears. The attorney received an email stating the scammer got fired after he reported being sexually harassed by his superior. He claimed he has a severance agreement with his company, which has failed to pay him, and he wants to sue for breach of contract. The attorney said that the scammer had done a convincing job up to a point, that the grammar used was much better than in many scam emails, and that the documents he sent were much more convincing at a glance. Then the scammer emailed the attorney that he had talked to the company, that he wanted the firm to wait one week, and then wanted the attorney to deduct their fees from whatever amount the company would forward to the firm. The attorney went back and reviewed the PDF severance agreement that the scammer had forwarded and some of his other documents and could see that the URLs used for the employer are not the same as the real company. Also one of the emails has hypertext that shows it going to the CEO of a different company rather than the company the scammer claims to work for, indicating that they have used different variations of the same scheme with other companies.
Read more
