Small businesses have been warned to be on guard against fraudsters after financial crime experts reported a leap in the number of attempted “fake invoice” scams.
More companies have reported falling victim in the first half of this year than in the whole of last year, according to the City of London’s fraud reporting service, and Cifas, the crime prevention organisation.
The con involves criminals posing as a supplier and claiming that their company’s account details have changed. An employee then amends the supplier’s account. When the supplier files its invoices, the money is paid to the fraudulent account. A simpler version involves filing fake invoices which purport to be from a real supplier.
In some cases, criminals have been helped by employees within the targeted organisation passing them information about suppliers, Action Fraud and Cifas said.
Between January and June alone, 749 cases were reported, compared with 603 last year and 739 in 2013.
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The fraud prevention organisations said the real figure is probably much higher because many crimes go unreported.
Summer is often a favoured time to strike as fraudsters take advantage of experienced staff being on holiday.
Cifas and Action Fraud warned that smaller businesses were most at risk and may find it harder to recover from losing large sums.
Surrey police are investigating two allegations where businesses appear to have been conned out of around £1 million.
Pauline Smith, the head of the City’s Action Fraud, said: “It is important that employees are made aware of invoice scams and are ready to recognise the signs of fraud. Incidents of invoice fraud are under-reported and therefore it is difficult to know the true scale of this fraud type. However, what we do know, is that this type of fraud prevails across all types of business and no one type of industry is immune.”