Pressat TeamIt has recently come to our attention that the PR industry as a whole is being targeted by an international crime ring calling itself Silence Media Network.
The scam involves generating fake invoices under a genuine brand name and requesting further monies from PR agencies and businesses that have used our services.
We would like to clarify that we do not mail out invoices nor do we request additional payments after a transaction has already been completed. All of our customer transactions are securely carried out instead by PayPal using military grade encryption.
If you have already paid for our services and happen to receive an invoice from a company claiming to be Pressat/ Silence Media Network, an affiliate or somebody else you do not recognise please challenge the invoice or ignore it.
G Data, an antivirus security company in the UK have carried out an investigation on such phishing scams in an attempt to track down the criminals behind it.
G Data explains the only time you should ever interact is: ‘If you receive a court order […] you have two weeks to tick the box with “I object to this claim”. You do not have to fill out anything else, sign [at the bottom] and return it to the court.’
The scam seems to be extremely complex with companies registered in the Cyprus jurisdiction with links through the Netherlands using the Dutch bank ABN Amro.
The information presented on these invoices is generic and being taken from published press releases.
A number of other press release services in the industry including Cison Wire have been also targeted by this scam; you can see their blog post here
If you would like to discuss this further or are unsure of what action to take with regard to Silence Media Network or a similar situation please contact our support team.
Pressat Team