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Running a services business means learning to read people quickly. A few months ago, an inquiry landed in my inbox that looked almost perfect on first pass: a six-figure project, a recognizable industry and a polished corporate email signature. By the third email, I was confident that something about it wasn’t what it seemed.
That experience is not as rare as most agency owners assume. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded $2.77 billion in reported business email compromise losses in 2024 alone. Small service businesses are frequent targets because our inboxes are public and our pipelines are hungry.
The stakes are rarely abstract. At best, you burn hours qualifying an inquiry that was never going to convert. At worst, you hand over site access, client data or unpaid “trial” work to someone who was never a real buyer, and you only realize it after the damage is done. Knowing the warning signs is what keeps a hopeful pipeline from quietly becoming a liability.
The good news is that the warning signs are usually right there in the first few messages. Here are five I’ve learned to watch for — and what they often signal.
The sending domain doesn’t match the company
Start with the email domain. If someone claims to represent a recognizable brand but writes from a free inbox or a lookalike domain with a subtle misspelling, extra hyphen or altered extension, slow down. Legitimate procurement rarely comes from generic Gmail accounts, and almost never from domains like “contact-acme-group.co” when the real company uses acme.com.
Do a quick independent check. Find the company’s real website, LinkedIn page and staff directory. If the sender doesn’t appear anywhere in the organization they claim to represent, that’s not a detail — it’s the signal.
The sender’s role keeps shifting
Read the entire thread, not just individual emails. One message comes from a “Director of Digital.” The next is a “Head of Procurement.” A third says they “manage vendor relationships.”
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