Got scammed and Employer called me stupid

[FidoO5]

Made a massive error at work
I pay suppliers. We had new supplier who emailed to change bank details from original bank details. We usually phone supplier to confirm but it was over and back for a while and it was getting urgent.
I asked them to confirm new details and I sent the payment.
later it was discovered by the original supplier while on phone to buyer that they did not request to be sent to new bank.
My Employer was notified by the buyer and employer said how could you be so stupid.
I broke down and cried when I came off the phone.
I was able to recall the payment but now have to worry about what Employer will do tomorrow. I understand he was angry and annoyed but I am doing Accounts for 35 years so don't think I'm stupid.
I fell for a scam.
Don't know what point off my post is only getting it it in a note makes it helpful
What should I say to Employer tomorrow
If I say yes I made an error his answer is that is not a good enough answer.

The apology is on you OP. How would you feel losing 57k? Not all businesses are multi-nationals you know. 1 hurty word you should well be able to cope with!

Hardly, those are the points anyone with any common sense would make, why would it be the boss?

Step back from the problem for a second or two. You made a mistake (We made a similar mistake a few years ago with £1m+ but like you we managed to get it reversed quickly). It was a mistake and we turned it into a positive because we tightened up procedures and reminded everyone how easy it is for this to happen.

It was a silly mistake. Use the word silly, stupid, brainfart, whatever else you want to but if i lost £57k i would expect a similar comment. I wouldnt take it to heart as long as they used the situation in the positive.

For the record the accounts person who was responsible for the £1m mistake years ago pretty much runs every financial aspect of our company now and is amazing. Mistakes happen, learning from them is more important than getting hung up on the wording.

The answer is really that as Accounts, you must never allow yourself to step outside process on account a percieved urgency by other departments.

Money is at stake, so process must be followed above all.

I would admit you made an error, I would not try to prove why I did it. I would likely take the repurcussions and ensure it never happened again.

Stupid comment.

@RawBloomersmakes very valid points.

OP did cock up. She needs to own that and work constructively with her employer to ensure procedures are in place (and followed) to ensure this doesn’t happen again.

You were able to recall the transaction. End of story. Lesson learned, no money or clients lost.

Your employer needs to get over it.

Hold your head high.

I imagine your boss was upset, frustrated, disappointed and stressed. I think you were lucky to only be called stupid, tbh.

You made a mistake when you were put under pressure - we've all been there, or at least I have. The money was able to be recalled. Your boss also acted in the moment under pressure too. You both made mistakes. I'd approach this meeting with some suggestions on how to improve and in the spirit of learning. With your track record, I doubt they will fire you (particularly as it turned out Okay).

The reason why I'm not going in quite as hard as some others about your mistake is that when you're put under pressure your brain might start to signal danger and when that happens, the thinking brain can go offline (a fight or flight response) because you priortitise survival rather than rational thought so you lose the ability to think things through - maybe that's what happened? This is why scammers stress danger/urgency etc.

Hope the meeting goes Okay for you!

Applying pressure to make an urgent payment is a classic scam tactic. If the OP has not had social engineering and/or cyber security training then that is on the company. We have annual training plus regular tests at work on this kind of thing. If you fall for the test scam you have to re-do the training. I work in governance and am alarmed at the OP's actions and her reasoning/excuse as a finance employee. This should be reported to the board and the OP should be (re)trained.

It's really not that simple. Hold her head high for not following policy? It's a disciplinary matter imo.

This

According to your OP he didn't call you stupid, he asked how you could have been so stupid/done something so stupid? Is that different or better, does it imply that you are normally more switched on in his opinion, maybe?

Pretty stupid thing to do

It’s common knowledge to never accept a change of bank details over email. Perfectly valid question imo

Surely whoever gave you the instruction from Admin needs to be involved in any investigation? I know you don't want to drop them in it, but you need to establish what went wrong to ensure it doesn't happen again, and they are a significant part of the process.

Doesn’t sound like your processes are robust enough. I have to authorise payments at work and we have a three stage approval process for payments where three separate people have to look at the authorisation and check the bank account information before the payment is sent.

Quite possibly those bank details are the Buyer's, your colleague's own bank details. Alternatively the Buyer may have been scammed or be being put under pressure by criminals. You have to give all the information in order for the issue to be properly investigated. Ultimately though, you have to follow process and policy.

Worryingly, the OP's first post states it was a new supplier who then provided different bank details. The fact this was a new supplier this happened with - it has all the hallmarks of a scam - points to a potential security weakness making the company vulnerable to criminal activity or an employee or someone close to an employee who has attempted fraud.

An email from my boss with our invoice attached was intercepted, the bank account on our invoice changed and forwarded to its recipient. They knew us, they had paid prior invoices but didn´t clock that there was a change in the account number. They were scammed 600,000 euros. Luckily the email was intercepted on their server, so they took the hit. So the change doesn´t need to be obvious/announced. You need 6000 eyes.
He should apologise for calling you stupid, that was unnecessary, but you did not follow existing policy and that is a massive failure.

You have done something stupid because you didn't follow the procedure put in place to prevent this. Perhaps you can identify a gap in the process, are payments having to be rushed or something? However, that doesn't make you stupid and if the rest of your work is good your employer is unprofessional for reacting in this way. I guess everyone got a fright.

There doesn’t need to be a new control of second approval. You just need to follow the original control of ringing to check bank details.

The worst that could happen is that the supplier doesn’t get their payment until a few days late. As it happens, you tried to prevent this and they still didn’t get their payment on time and your company is out of pocket.

I don’t think saying “how could you be so stupid” is the same as saying you are stupid though. You did a stupid thing by bypassing the correct process. It doesn’t make you stupid overall - but it was a silly thing to do.

It’d be gross misconduct in my work though, as you wilfully didn’t follow process which then cost the company money. It wasn’t a mistake, it was a decision you made.

Eh? Hold her head high for what? I accept she shouldn't be called names, but to say hold your head high after losing her employer £57,000 is arrant nonsense. There has to be some humility and acceptance of error.

Edit for punctuation.

Hold her head up high? For what?

In many workplaces, she would be facing a disciplinary and dismissal. Nothing to hold her head high about.

Everyone makes mistakes, but let’s not pretend it’s no big deal.

If you asked them to confirm details by phone, on the normal number you always correspond with them on, then it wasn't your fault.
As long as you rang who you thought was them before sending the payment then you did what your employer asks.

He's out of order calling you stupid. It's really upsetting being scammed.

Its tech speak, in all training you do its how its referred to. For the most part it is sophisticated because the scammers have to be able to hack into someones system and then be able to pretend to be the person they have hacked ( usually using sophisticated algorithms ).

I wouldn’t even use basic to describe it in this sense or the sense you mean. Its usually complex but it is one of the most common scams that people fall for. The ones where they hack a finance officer and then send an email saying pay xxxx this amount, easily gets actioned because people like the OP don’t follow process and think ooh this has come from the boss better just do it.

Anything over like 5k should be dual signed off as part of the process