Email messages claiming to be from an employee that were sent in November to the LGBT+ Counseling Collaborative in Arlington, Va., and to a yoga studio in Middleton, Del., requested that the employees’ direct deposit paycheck be sent to a new bank account.

According to an official with the LGBT+ Counseling Collaborative and the employee at the yoga studio, the emails had the employees’ correct names, including a photo, and included a bank account number for the Green Dot Bank where the email messages said the salary payments should be deposited.

Yoga studio teacher SK Smigiel, who identifies as transgender and uses the pronouns she/they, and LGBT+ Counseling Collaborative official S.C. Neely said their organizations checked with the employees to verify whether they wanted to change their bank accounts and quickly learned that the email messages were fake and were an attempt to steal the salary payment of the employees.

Smigiel told the Washington Blade she posted information about what happened on her Instagram page and received information from people across the country saying the same scam happened to others and at least some lost money.

“I shared that this happened to us,” Smigiel said in referring to her social media postings about the attempted scam. “And we got up to 12 other people across the country in the last month saying this has happened to them. And many of them lost money,” Smigiel told the Blade.

“So, their employers did not catch this before it went through,” she said. “So, now we are having active harm happening to people, and from what I’m seeing across the board, police are not investigating or doing anything to take action.”

According to Smigiel, the employees being targeted by this scam appear to be transgender, including the employee of the LGBT+ Counseling Collaborative in Arlington.

“For me it was the same thing,” she said. “I’m the only trans employee at my company. And I’m not sure if these people are starting on social media to try to find trans people and their employment specifically. But it has only happened from what I’ve seen to the trans community specifically, which is interesting.”

Smigiel, who spoke to the Blade on Dec. 9, said she had not yet reported the attempted scam to police in Delaware, but she saved copies of the fake emails sent to her employer at the yoga studio, which included a bank account number for the Green Dot Bank.

“I’m kind of sitting on it, waiting to hear more from other people I’ve spoken to, because they’re from different districts across the country,” she said.

Nealy, however, said she did report the attempted scam to Arlington police and, much to her disappointment, she was told police declined to investigate the incident.

Arlington police spokesperson Ashley Savage told the Blade police have documented the incident but confirmed a decision was made not to open an investigation at this time.

“Given it was an attempted fraud, there was no fraud that was committed,” Savage told the Blade. “And based on call volume, we have to evaluate the information that we receive regarding cases and whether or not there is information to follow up on,” she said.

Asked whether Arlington police could have followed up on this case, especially since the fake email messages sent to the Arlington based LGBT+ Counseling Collaborative included the name of a bank and a bank account number, Savage said, “The information has been documented.”

She added, “We do work with a high volume of cases, especially with property-based crimes,”  she said. “And we do evaluate whether or not there is a solvability factor for each one of them, unfortunately.”

The Blade contacted the Green Dot Bank, which describes itself on its website as a “branchless bank that operates primarily through retail distribution locations nationwide.” A spokesperson for the bank said the bank was “aware of and engaged on this matter” but could not provide specific details.

“For privacy and security reasons, we’re unable to share details about customer accounts or circumstances, or specifics on our work to combat fraud,” said Whit Chapman, Green Dot Bank’s director of communications. “However, we can confirm that account protection and fraud prevention are top priorities at Green Dot, and we work around the clock and invest heavily to identify, block and address fraudulent activity.”