Not if the tester was an outside contractor and it’s reasonable to be suspicious of someone you don’t know asking for information in exchange for money. But it’s a different story if a company worker was doing the “test” and offered me money for company information. That’s pretty much my normal job (get paid for giving people information), why should anyone be suspicious of that?

Obviously we could come up with details that make it sound completely ridiculous, or totally normal. If someone calls me and says they’ll share the bounty/award money for helping them fix a problem, that sounds normal. If a janitor offers to pay me money to throw away proprietary info without shredding it, that sounds suspicious.

But the point here is that an internal email about having to put in info for your bonus isn’t necessarily suspicious. I have my regular pay and my travel reimbursement deposited into two different accounts right now, so I wouldn’t bat an eye at needing to provide account info for a bonus.