Was my quickbooks payroll account hacked?

[SeenEnough]

I'm an accountant currently using Quickbooks Desktop Pro Plus 2020 with a subscription to Intuit Quickbooks Payroll (annual). Having used different versions of QB through the years I'm a little nervous with what I'm encountering. In the last several weeks I'm receiving numerous emails from "IntuitPayrollServices @ payrollservices. intuit. com" giving me different payroll service keys for my Enhanced Payroll for Accountants. When I called support I was told Quickbooks never sends service keys via email. The rep. told me there is no such address for QB or Intuit; the only address I should open is Quickbooks Online @ Intuit.com.  When I heard that (email address) I replied that we don't use Online QuickBooks but didn't receive a response.  Can someone clue me in on any of this or at least verify what I'm being told? 

Btw, posting here is new to me so if I'm in the wrong area to post this please let me know how to get to the correct site. Much thanks.

[JRC]

Never trust emails claiming to be Intuit, Quickbooks, Chase, Proseries, IRS, Microsoft, Outlook, ect...

Never click on links included in the emails received claiming to be any of the above. Always log in to the sites as you normally without their links unless you requested the link or know positively that the links are accurate....

Too many business are operating thru the Internet and emails nowadays!!!  Pick up the phone......

Also... Good idea to have a dedicated computer for emails and internet communications so as to protect your business data from being hacked.

[Travis H]

Sorry to hear about your concerns relating to your QuickBooks account.

While we ultimately encourage you to reach out to QuickBooks support, if you're looking to get the thoughts of other QuickBooks users, you will want to try QuickBooks Community.

[qbteachmt · Accepted solution]

"Btw, posting here is new to me so if I'm in the wrong area to post this please let me know how to get to the correct site. Much thanks."

You are in a Community for Tax Prep using ProSeries, Lacerte and ProConnect programs.

The QB Community has its own Community forum, which is linked to your QB in-product Help panel. Go to it using your browser, here:

https://quickbooks.intuit.com/learn-support/us-quickbooks-community/misc/03/community-us

Intuit owns payroll.com and beyond that, your info such as payroll key is available to you from your Intuit Account, the same as all products and subscriptions Intuit.

QB Support thinks the world revolves around QB Online. Especially if you use Desktop Accountant Edition, you are the red-headed stepchild for them.

You know there is no reason to get or use any different key than you already have working. You know you are logged into the company files where you use this info. Anything outside of the Intuit-verse would be suspicious and ignored. Inside of the QB program, that is server-to-server and not intercepted by spammers. You cannot conclude the same is true about email or web links.

[SeenEnough]

Thank you for responding so quickly. I appreciate the advice as this has really thrown me. My computer is locked tight, as tight as the deadbolted office doors & windows.  I grew up with a rotary phone & black and white TV (you do know they were real once, right?) so I don't quite get it. Not a lot of it anyway, so I rely on a professional IT to check our equipment every few months. 

That's what's so jarring about this; it's hard for me to understand the "how". How did this happen? Maybe you or someone else can explain it; I just have this need to know...how. Hard to believe it was random; not with my full name and company name on the emails.  

[SeenEnough]

Thanks for that info! And for pointing me in the right direction (forum).

[qbteachmt]

There are plenty of ways to find out who you are and your contact info, and then a scammer can try to reach you. For instance, there are QB users that signed up for ProAdvisor, so there you are: on the web and able to be found. I've seen search results on a forum where the individual postings use a username (or Profile name), but the search result revealed the email info that is the log in for that forum. Intuit has had some data hacked, and of course, no one has really revealed where it came from. You buy an intuit product, and you get email from something that doesn't seem related. It might be related, because Intuit owns so much and did some cross-population for marketing purposes. Or, it is not related, and the info is out there from some nefarious score of scoured data. It doesn't mean your Payroll account or your Intuit account were hacked. Sometimes we read too much into the event.

It's like the mailings I get for my vehicle, an extended warranty because my manufacturer warranty is about to expire. You think? The two cars in my garage are both over 15 years old, and one has over 130,000 miles. Yeah, any warranty they came with would be gone at this point. Launch that arrow, see where it lands, see if the person reacts. And why are you mailing me from Toyota? I've never owned one. But that might score for any blanket approach; there certainly are more Toyota owners than, say, Renault owners.

[SeenEnough]

Thanks for responding and giving me additional thought.