Cash to master catastrophe

Cash to master payments can also be intercepted. A member of staff in a ship management company was suspicious of a message asking if cash to master could be sent directly to the ship agent’s foreign exchange broker who could secure banknotes which were in short supply in that part of the world. The staff member queried the instruction, replying to the email, “As we don’t know broker, would it be possible to remit CTM to your bank account as usual? Of course they received confirmation of the new arrangement from the same e-mail address. The advice is to take separate steps to verify the instructions. Don’t use the reply button!