Date Time Online scammers targeting farming community The cattle farmer, from Mitchell in the Western Downs, recently fell foul of the business email compromise (BEC) scam when he purchased cattle at Auction Plus, and transferred money using account details on a TopX invoice that had been hacked by scammers. BEC scams occur when a hacker gains access to a business’s email accounts, or ‘spoof’ a business’s email so their emails appear to come from the company. The hacker then sends emails to customers claiming that the business’s banking details have changed and that future invoices should be paid to a new account.