Email scams happen all the time and while some are clearly scams, others are insanely realistic that you have to catch yourself before doing anything you’ll regret. Serie A team Lazio apparently didn’t get that message and gave a couple million dollars to online hackers instead of the team they were supposed to pay for a player.
According to Il Tempo out of Italy and Sky Sports, hackers were able to obtain details of Lazio’s deal with Feyenoord for Stefan de Vrij. The hackers then emailed Lazio, posing as Feyenoord officials and were apparently so convincing that Lazio paid them the final $2.5 million payment of a $9.5 million transfer set in the summer of 2014.
While the money has been tracked to a Dutch bank account, the account isn’t Feyenoord’s and they claim they never got the money or even sent the email that started the money transfer.
To make matters worse for the fifth place Serie A team, Lazio and De Vrij haven’t agreed to a new contract and De Vrij is going to be leaving the team this summer. So not only does Lazio get scammed out of a couple mil but they also lose the player they have been paying for.
[Sky Sports/Photo: Berita Liga Italia]
