Agents should be on the alert after what appears to be the hacking of the email account of the consumer group HomeOwners Alliance.
Estate Agent Today has been contacted by several estate agents who received an email from the HOA address with an attachment that is described in the email as an invoice.
When one agent opened the attachment it tried to download a file on to the company’s system.
Angels Media, publisher of Estate Agent Today and other Today titles, also received this kind of email this morning.
Agents are advised to delete emails from the HOA purporting to contain an attachment.
HomeOwners Alliance has been contacted for an official comment.
In the meantime, this message has been sent by the HOA to agents and others who may have received the original hacked email:
Please ignore and delete the email sent to you from Paula Higgins via Mailchimp
Dear newsletter subscriber,
Please ignore and delete the previous email from us. We are investigating with Mailchimp what has happened. Please be reassured that we do not keep any member or user payment details on Mailchimp, only email addresses. We are working as hard and quickly as possible to resolve this situation and will update you as soon as this is rectified.
Very sorry for the inconvenience
Paula Higgins
Chief Executive
HomeOwners Alliance
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Can Estate Agent Today run a survey on how many spam emails are received each week 0, less than 5, or more than 5, which have an invoice, CV to download (with or without a password)? I think the figures will be staggering and should give support to government lobbying from NAEA, FSB etc. The costs to some buisness must be huge.
Given every facet of our lives is based on systems and IT why is there not a department solely (like Transport) for IT/IS?
I have a single branch and receive at least 10 weekly. I also received this one and deleted it immediately. An ex employee downloaded a locky virus 3 years ago which destroyed every single file on the computer. Easily done if you don't think. I just assume everything is a fraud unless I can prove otherwise.
We never give out or accept bank details via email. We always confirm by telephone!
Stuart Forsdike
PCS Legal
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