As first reported by Business & Accountancy Daily, scammers are targeting ACCA members in the UK and Ireland, asking members for immediate payment of membership fees in order to renew their practicing certificates and licenses.
The scammers are taking advantage of a very busy period for accountants, especially in Ireland, when more of their concentration is on their clients’ Income Tax and company CRO returns.
Aidan Clifford Advisory Services Manager Ireland at ACCA Ireland said “this one was poorly executed, but it serves to warn people that the next one will be executed better and to be wary. It was circulated in the UK first and then in the Republic of Ireland.
As Aidan said, “there were several give-away signs in the message that it was a fake.
- The e-mail “from” field is not an ACCA address.
- The physical address in the message for ACCA is not a real address. Queen Street is in Glasgow and not in Dublin.
- The named ACCA staff person is not a real ACCA employee; and
- the ACCA logo was wrong.”
“Accountants in public practice will always have public contact information available and will therefore be subject to more frequent phishing. They just need to remain more vigilant”, he said.
We would advise members of the professional accountancy and tax bodies, Chartered Accountants Ireland and the Irish Tax Institute, to be extra vigilant for this and similar scams in the run-up to the New Year when many membership subscriptions fall due for renewal.
For additional guidance, technical documents and CPD on money laundering and other accounting/audit related topics, please go to our website for:
Please go to our website for:
- Our latest CPD Webinar on The Main Changes in Irish GAAP (recorded July 2024)
- Anti-Money Laundering Policies Controls and Procedures Manual (March 2022) — View the table of contents
- AML Webinar (December 2023) available here, which accompanies the AML Manual. It explains the latest legal AML reporting position for accountancy firms and includes a quiz. Upon completion you receive a CPD certificate for attendance in your inbox.
- Letters of engagement and similar templates—Please visit our website here where immediate downloads are available in Word format. A bulk discount is available for orders of five or more items bought together.
- ISQM TOOLKIT, or if you prefer to chat through the different audit risks and potential appropriate responses presented by this new standard, please contact John McCarthy FCA by email at john@jmcc.ie.
- We typically tailor ISQM training and brainstorming sessions to suit your firm’s unique requirements. The ISQM TOOLKIT 2022 is available to purchase here.
