This shark fell prey to a phishing scam, hook, line and sinker.
Barbara Corcoran, a star panelist on the business funding show “Shark Tank,” lost nearly $400,000 in the scheme, she told People Wednesday.
“I was upset at first, but then remembered it was only money,” Corcoran said.
Corcoran, whose role on the ABC reality show is to identify the true entrepreneurs, was victimized when her bookkeeper received a legit-looking email approving a payment of $388,700 for a real estate renovation. It looked like it came from Corcoran’s assistant. The boss invests in real estate, so the bookkeeper, after asking a few questions in an email exchange, wired the sum to what she thought was a German firm, TMZ reported.
But when the bookkeeper later emailed Corcoran’s real assistant to discuss the transaction, the assistant discovered the fraud. The email address with which the bookkeeper had previously corresponded was misspelled by one letter, TMZ noted. But it was too late.
“The scammer disappeared and I’m told that it’s a common practice, and I won’t be getting the money back,” Corcoran told People.
This shark shouldn’t feel the bite too much. Corcoran sold her real estate brokerage firm The Corcoran Group for $66 million in 2001, makes millions on her “Shark Tank” investments, and is the author of the bestselling “Shark Tales: How I Turned $1,000 into a Billion Dollar Business!”
