Examples of corporate fraud

• Employees spending company money for private gain. For instance ordering goods for personal use or over-ordering goods in return for supplier back-handers.
• Fraudsters setting up a merchant account in your company’s name and accepting orders for goods that they do not supply, leaving you to pick up the pieces.
• Hijacking your website to redirect orders to their server.
• Impersonating company directors and changing the directors and registered address of the business.
• Rifling through rubbish bins to get employee names, bank account details and other sensitive information.
• Ordering goods from your e-commerce site with stolen credit cards or by telephone with bogus account details (made to look like a real company) leaving you with shipped goods and a charge back.
• Scams and phishing attacks designed to get access to the company’s online banking details.
• Registering a website domain similar to yours, perhaps a near-misspelling, to capture some of your traffic.
• Infiltrating employees, such as handymen or cleaners, to steal passes, passwords and private information.

Protect your business

• Read about phishing, social engineering, e-commerce fraud and identity theft. Much of this advice to individuals also applies to businesses.
• Train your staff about the risks.
• Check your website, email and Companies House records on a regular basis.
• Reconcile bank statements and company credit card statements meticulously.
• Make it easy for staff, customers and suppliers to report anything unusual. For example have an email link on your website.
• Track registration of new domains that are similar to yours. Consider registering common misspellings and variations of your company name.
• Shred sensitive papers before you throw them out.
• Set guidelines and processes for who can order things on behalf of the company. Use a formal purchase order system to prevent unwanted orders.
• Vet new employees.
• Validate new customers with credit agencies, check their contact details by calling them and set strict credit limits.
• If selling online, validate new customers y using verification solutions such as Address Verification Service / Card Security Code and Verified by Visa / MasterCard SecureCode. There are a number of commercial providers of verification solutions and details can be found via the CardWatch website.
• Consider filing your company secretarial records using the Companies House WebFiling system to reduce the threat of identity theft of your company name or directors.

More information

• The Fraud Advisory Panel has a helpful booklet called "Fighting Fraud: A Guide for SMEs."  You can download it from their website.