A heavy equipment rental business is speaking out after it was the target of a massive fraud.

Three months ago, Spence Equipment Rentals in North Battleford, Sask., agreed to buy a piece of heavy machinery in the U.S. for $1.4 million. After the agreement, the seller sent Spence Equipment an email with instructions on how to e-transfer the money.

Minutes later, scammers sent a second email to the company with different banking information.

The company clicked on the wrong email and within seconds, the money was gone.

"When they found the earlier email, their heart went wild," said lawyer Stuart Busse, who speaks for the company. "They then went through the process and started to chase down where the money went."

Management decided to tell their story after a similar scam recently unfolded at the City of Saskatoon earlier this month.

In that instance, fraudsters pretended to be the Chief Financial Officer of a local construction company and told the city it was changing its banking information.

Since then, banks have managed to locate and freeze the vast majority of the City's money.

In the case of the North Battleford business, investigators were able to recover most of the money, but around $350,000 USD will likely never be found.

"Even though the RCMP are involved and, we've been advised, so have the FBI, the chances of recovering that are probably next to nil," said Busse.

The lawyer said the company has strengthened its systems to make sure it is never targeted by a similar scam, and hopes other companies are more careful after hearing this story.

"Talk to somebody down there that you know," said Busse. "Confirm that these are the right instructions, rather than just relying on e-mail."

Busse said he believes the U.S. company selling to Spence Equipment was compromised and that hackers were monitoring the company's emails, waiting to send out false e-transfer information.

The City of Saskatoon said it would be providing more information about its fraud in the next several months.