Individuals and business checked have defrauded legitimate businesses out of millions. Many commercial frauds occur when an alleged that company poses to established lines of credit to buy easily disposable goods. Checking later when it is time to collect, the company went into liquidation, having sold the goods without paying the creditors.

A recent survey* by Equifax revealed that three quarters of business owners fail to carry out even the simplest of credit checks on potential customers. The picture is even worse when it comes to dealing with potential suppliers, with 75% admitting they don’t run any form of background checks.

Businesses need to take the issue of company fraud seriously by not leaving themselves open to loss.

A Cheap Business Check For The Top 5 Types of Fraud Identified in Survey

· Internal fraud

· Bank account accessed and abused

· Check fraud – check book intercepted and used

· Company details used to purchase goods

The Equifax 12-point Checklist to reduce the risk of Corporate Fraud

1. Don’t assume information provided is correct – always double check and follow up references
2. Confirm fax and telephone numbers

3. Never accept hand written order forms or faxes

4. Confirm the trading address of customers and suppliers

5. Ask for original headed company paper

6. Identify business partners and directors

7. Are you sure they are who they say they are?

8. Check that the telephone area code is relevant to where the business claims to be trading from

9. Can they provide trade or bank references?

10. Are all references truly independent?

11. Check for any connections to previous companies with similar or identical names

12. Did they answer your call with a business name?