Farmers are being warned they are a major target for criminals trying to defraud them out of hundreds of thousands of pounds. Financial Fraud Action UK’s (FFA UK) intelligence bureau has reported an upsurge of two scams in particular – invoice fraud, where criminals send in fake requests for payment – and phone fraud, where companies are telephoned and tricked into revealing important payment details.
Because fraud is not always detected immediately, stolen funds are often quickly transferred outside of the UK making it near impossible to get the money back. Police and bank reporting suggest agriculture is one of the industries that have been hit hardest.
Farmers in Selby, Yorkshire, were conned after a criminal gang claiming to be from a bank’s fraud detection department claimed that fraudsters were trying to cash cheques in their names. They were encouraged to move money into another account so that the frauds would stop, but these were controlled by the gang and five businesses lost tens of thousands of pounds each.
Katy Worobec, Director of FFA UK said: “Criminals are turning their attention to businesses because successfully scamming a company can net the fraudster a much bigger haul than they could steal from an individual. Fraudsters also understand that small businesses are used to processing all kinds of payments and so a simple request to change an invoice or provide some financial information has a good chance of deceiving an accounts department.
“To avoid falling victim to the fraudsters, always double-check who you’re talking to and be suspicious if you receive a cold call and are asked for lots of information. If you’re ever in doubt, ring back the company on a number that you know, and ask to be put through to the person who you’ve spoken to before.”
And a property firm in North London lost £99,500 after a Director was tricked into revealing key information to a fraudster over the phone. He was told that a payment he had made the previous week for employee salaries had not been processed and that some verification checks were now necessary. Not wanting to delay the payment further, the Director gave his financial details over the phone, including the security code from his online banking authentication device. The fraudster was then able to log on to the company’s online banking page and transfer money out of the account.
