Points of Interest: First Quarter 2023

A recent influx of fraud reports to the Federal Trade Commission indicate that online social life is the newest target for scammers. Read
American companies are on pace to bring back 350,000 jobs from overseas. Read
Intuit warns of new phishing attack against QuickBooks customers. Read
This well known logic puzzle is about one very colorful neighborhood. Read
Join Rachel Siegel and Go Figure on June 2 at the Small Business Leadership Conference at the JW Marriott in Orlando. Read

Social media has become almost an extension of the self; we use it to stay in touch, meet people, plan our weekends, shop, relax, or kill a few minutes while we’re sitting in the drive-thru. But a recent influx of fraud reports to the Federal Trade Commission indicate that this online social life is the newest target for scammers.

And we’re not talking about some run-of-the-mill pickpocketing. “They literally mirrored my accounts, siphoning money out from my checking and PayPal accounts without me even knowing,” says Dr. Donita McCants, owner of a concierge mobile veterinary practice in central Florida. “At first, it was a few hundred dollars — something a business owner wouldn’t think twice about. You see a charge for Facebook Advertising and you think, ‘yes, sure, that makes sense.’ But really, I was only spending half of that.”

Cramming an entire veterinary office inside the back of a tricked-out Mercedes Benz Sprinter van was not a childhood dream of Dr. Donita’s, but taking care of animals certainly was. “I was always one of those kids putting popsicle sticks on baby birds. I’ve pushed for this dream since I was 5 years old. Now the dream is real.”

And the process of turning that dream into reality was one she documented on Facebook and TikTok. She never would have imagined that sharing her story would come at such a high cost—to the tune of $20,000 in fraud.

It wasn’t until she brought her books to Rachel Siegel for help reconciling the accounts that the pieces finally started to make sense. “I just felt like my numbers were draining, and I didn’t know what was going on. It took Rachel literally 24 hours to sort it out. She’s absolutely incredible. I’m so grateful.”

It may have taken 24 hours to identify the gap, but it would take months to finally say the problem was solved. “The scammers are just that good,” Donita says. “They were so deep into my accounts that even when I turned off PayPal and disabled my linked accounts, they had already accessed my bank accounts. At one point, they changed all my passwords, and when I fixed it, they did it again!”

It took starting from scratch—new bank, new accounts, each with new double- and triple-authentication—to put an end to the sieve. While the worst may be over, there’s no way to undo what’s been done; Dr. Donita won’t recoup a single cent of what she lost. It’s a painful lesson for a first year in business. But Dr. Donita, ever the optimist, just wants others to learn from her mistake.

“At first, it was a few hundred dollars — something a business owner wouldn’t think twice about. You see a charge for Facebook Advertising and you think, ‘yes, sure, that makes sense.’ But really, I was only spending half of that.”
Dr. Donita McCants, client

First and foremost, Donita says: Have a great accountant. “Go Figure has been so instrumental in repairing the damage and helping me stay afloat during this time.”

Second: Don’t rely on automated systems to tell you what, where, and when you’re spending. “Write down what you spend or authorize on social media advertising. Only use one tool to place your ads. No third-party anything.”

And finally: Keep a strangle hold on your accounts, even if it’s inconvenient. “I have one account linked to my social media advertising account and that’s it. And set your fraud alerts to the highest level. Sure, it’s a pain to triple-authenticate every time you purchase something, but it’s worth every penny.”

Made in the USA

According to the Wall Street Journal, American companies are on pace to bring back 350,000 jobs from overseas—the most since tracking data started in 2010, when only 6,000 jobs were returned. Some reasons for the boom in reshoring include supply chain havoc from Covid and the war in Ukraine, as well as new government incentives for domestic production.

So, how important is buying American to Americans in 2022? One of our favorite newsletters, Retail Brew, teamed up with Harris Poll and surveyed 1,986 US adults to find out.

72%

of US consumers seek out American-made products very often or somewhat often.

64%

said inflation has negatively impacted their preference for domestic goods. 26% of those said inflation has a lot of negative impact.

48%

are willing to pay 10% to 20% more for American-made goods over imported goods.

Quick Hooks

Intuit warns of new phishing attack against QuickBooks customers.

Accounting and tax software provider Intuit sent emails warning users of its subsidiary accounting software, QuickBooks, to be on the lookout for phishing emails purporting to be from the company.

The emails appear to be official messages from Intuit, with logos and all, telling people there are issues with their account, such as being unable to verify some information and asking them to click a link that collects personal data.

The company says it will never send an email with a supposed “software update” or “software download” attachment, nor will it send an email asking the recipient to send sign-in or password details, ask for bank or credit card details, or ask business users for confidential information about employees in an email.

Riddle Me this

First appearing in Life magazine in 1962, the Zebra Puzzle is about one very colorful neighborhood. Each house is painted a different color and lived in by a person of a different nationality. Each person owns a pet, drinks a beverage, and smokes a brand of cigarettes, and none of them owns, drinks, or smokes the same thing.

The puzzle itself has 15 “pieces,” which are each facts about this neighborhood:

There are five houses.
The English person lives in the red house.
The Spanish person owns the dog.
Coffee is drunk in the green house.
The Ukrainian person drinks tea.
The green house is immediately to the right of the ivory house.
The Old Gold smoker owns snails.
Kools are smoked in the yellow house.
Milk is drunk in the middle house.
The Norwegian person lives in the first house.
The person who smokes Chesterfields lives in the house next to the person with the fox.
Kools are smoked in the house next to the house where the horse is kept.
The Lucky Strike smoker drinks orange juice.
The Japanese person smokes Parliaments.
The Norwegian person lives next to the blue house.

And so, the final question— two questions, actually: Who drinks water? And who owns the zebra?

Double the Dough

Jeff’s Bagel Run is our tastiest small business success story.

Quick recap: After moving to Winter Garden in 2016, Jeff and Danielle Perera began searching for the perfect bagel. Unfortunately, finding a morning bagel in Florida that appeased the two New York natives proved nearly impossible. So, Jeff did the only sensible thing—he started making his own.

That spark ignited a business, and Jeff’s hobby turned into sharing joy with the community in the form of a pop-up shop featuring hand-rolled, always boiled, fresh daily, delicious bagels!

Turns out, the entire community was hungry for something better. (Including Go Figure—Jeff’s Bagel Run is our breakfast of choice, and we did a little happy dance when Jeff and Danielle first became clients nearly two years ago.) They struggled to keep up with demand, often selling out of a day’s worth of bagels in minutes. They tried adding more pop-ups to get more bagels into the community. When even that wasn’t enough, the pair did what any budding young business would do and turned to Kickstarter.

Their digital fundraising campaign helped them successfully establish their first brick-and-mortar location in July 2021, and their second location in July 2022. When you pair passion with good finances, anything is possible!