Scammers on the rise in Southern Colorado

Local experts continue warning against scammers during tax season.

Those instances of scams in the workplace are on the rise here, resulting in more than a million dollars in damages.

“We have seen a huge increase right now because of attempts to get payroll records from companies so the bad guys can file tax returns,” explained Jeff Beauprez, Colorado Networks CEO.

Beauprez heads up a company that partners with the National Cybersecurity Center and says five companies in the greater Southern Colorado region have been targeted recently by phishing scams.

Scammers attempt to get payroll information from companies via email so they can file fraudulent tax returns.

“They’re extremely clever. They go to great lengths to research their prospects so to speak to find out who’s in the organization — names, positions, what they do, so that they can craft an email that looks very legit as if it’s coming from one of their colleagues. They’ll spend weeks maybe months doing research on the company before they issue that email,” said Jeff Beauprez, Colorado Networks CEO.

If something looks fishy, don’t ignore your gut feeling.

Another tip if you see a suspicious email: There’s a way to verify if the person who sent it is legitimate. If you take your mouse and hover over the link, it will show you who it is actually from. It’s important to make sure the name matches with the name in the original email.