Scammers are doing their research and finding out who the company boss is and then sending an email on his or her behalf. If you’re not careful, you can overlook the red flags.

When crooks target one company or individual it’s called spear phishing. A form of that is CEO fraud, where emails look like it came from your boss. Through research, scammers easily know who they want to reach and what they want that person to do.

“We have so much of our company information online, just public information. If you go onto any company’s website, they usually have a list of the staff,” said Marketplace Manager Jason Kama of the BBB Northwest and Pacific.

The email could read something like this: “…planning to surprise some of the staff with gifts, Your confidentiality would be appreciated so as not to ruin the surprise.”

“By cloaking it like that they actually gave it more of a hook and appeal because everybody understands during the holidays there might be some sort of surprise for staff,” said Kama.

Since this type of scam focuses on one target, scammers ask for more money. So they’ll write: “I need 30 pieces of iTunes Gift card $100 face value each. I need you to get the physical card, then you scratch the card take a picture of the card’s pin, attach and email it to me. How soon can you get this done?”

If it’s a scam, the email address of the sender is the giveaway. That’s why scammers take advantage of people using their smartphones to check emails.

“You don’t necessarily see the email address when you’re browsing your emails on your phone initially until you click through it,” said Kama.

To avoid mistakes, employers should also set up proper procedures.

“Whether it’s mandatory expense reports or some sort of form you fill out and hold everybody accountable to that,” said Kama.

The messages will also look like the email was sent from a smartphone. This keeps the scam brief, informal, and readers tend to overlook the typos. Be wary of these short, generic messages.