Payment Redirection & Bank Account Swap
Just before a wire transfer, the buyer receives an email with 'updated' banking details that route the payment to a fraudster's account.
How the scam works
- 1.Fraudster monitors or spoofs the email thread between buyer and supplier.
- 2.Near payment time, a near-identical email announces a new beneficiary bank.
- 3.The reason is plausible: 'tax audit', 'frozen account', 'new offshore entity'.
- 4.Funds are wired to a third-country account and withdrawn within hours.
Red flags to watch for
- Bank account is in a different country or company name than the supplier.
- Urgent request to change payment details at the last minute.
- Email domain differs by one character from the genuine supplier domain.
- Beneficiary is a personal account or unrelated trading company.
How to protect yourself
- Confirm any bank detail change by a phone call to a known, pre-verified number.
- Treat first-time beneficiary accounts in third countries as a hard stop.
- Lock banking details in the contract and refuse mid-deal changes.
In depth
Payment redirection is the costliest scam in the trade precisely because it hijacks a deal that is otherwise legitimate. The attacker quietly monitors a genuine email thread for weeks — sometimes from a mailbox they have compromised, sometimes from a look-alike domain differing by a single character — and strikes at the exact moment a payment is due. The 'updated' banking details look entirely consistent with the conversation, and by the time anyone notices, the funds have been wired to an account that is emptied within hours.
The defense is unglamorous but decisive: fix the beneficiary account in the signed contract at the outset, and confirm every payment instruction by voice on a number you established earlier — never a number from the payment email. Treat any last-minute change of bank details, however plausibly justified, as a hard stop, and refuse beneficiary accounts in a third country or a name that does not match the contracting entity exactly.
Related reading
Frequently asked questions
- My Chinese supplier suddenly changed their bank account — is it a scam?
- Treat any last-minute change of banking details as a hard stop. Confirm the change by phoning a number you verified earlier (not one from the email), and refuse beneficiary accounts in a different country or company name. This is the single most common way buyers lose large sums.
- How do I protect a wire transfer to a Chinese steel supplier?
- Lock the banking details into the signed contract at the start, verify any change by phone to a pre-verified contact, reject third-country or personal accounts, and for first orders prefer a letter of credit or escrow over a deposit wire.
Real cases
The last-minute bank email
Two days before the wire, the buyer received an email from the 'supplier' citing a tax audit and a new offshore account. The domain differed by a single letter.
Worried this is happening to you?
Run your supplier through the structured verification checklist.