Company Fraud warning

[barryrs]

Just a heads up guys.

We received a call from one of our creditors today double checking a requested change in banking details that they were half way through processing to which we replied "what change".

It seems a fraudster has managed to find out a fair bit of info about the company that unfortunately has to be in the public domain and mocked up a letter on imitation headed paper and using my name.

Thankfully this was picked up as they are due to pay almost £300k in the next 2 weeks.

The fraudster has apparently opened a Llyods bank account with an almost identical company name and provided new account number and sort code along with Bank address so hopefully the police will be able to trace them via this?

So just a heads up; if your company is owed money then it might be worth an email round to your creditors to let them know of this potential fraud.

[bam_bam]

Probably the creditor via a third party miscreant... they'd have all the correct details. Once they've set up the sting accounts and 'official' looking letter. The creditor could claim they'd paid you and produce 'proof' of transfer, only to plead ignorance that it went to a fraudster... it used to happen a lot during cheque payments. Companies would be set up with very slight misspellings and cheques were either intercepted by mail or 'sold' by the actual creditors for a lion share.

[barryrs]

It would appear that it was simply someone trying their luck and almost got very lucky.

Hopefully the police will make some effort in investigating the matter?

[Mr V10]

There is no reason for the details to be in the public domain so openly, when I formed my company, I purposely paid extra for a London forwarding address, but my personal details still come up under these company/director check websites. Not bank details, admittedly. But address/DOB, and you can't have it removed either, I tried that.

[barryrs]

The info used is in the public domain due to local authority involvement Amar.

They simply put together a few pieces of information that could be gained from the LA website such as my name, company details, most surprisingly the Creditor's details and have just tried it on by all accounts.