The impact of fraud and scams on businesses can be detrimental. Many struggle to recover from the severe financial and reputational damage it can cause. Take Five aims to help you to confidently challenge any requests for your business’s personal or financial information or requests to transfer money to another account which may belong to a criminal. Businesses of all sizes are at risk of fraud and some small and medium sized businesses may have limited resources and training to help identify and avoid fraud and scams.

Criminals may use social engineering tactics and impersonate suppliers or senior members of staff, contacting an employee by telephone, email, text message or social media. Criminals often target businesses through:

• CEO scams and where a criminal impersonates a senior manager asking you to either make an urgent payment or change payment details for a contract or supplier
• Invoice and mandate scams where a criminal poses as a genuine supplier and persuades you to change the bank account details you hold on file. You’re then tricked into sending money to the account which is controlled by a criminal.

Protect your business

1. Whether it’s raising, processing or approving a payment, ensure staff members at every stage of the payment process check invoices and payment details closely.
2. Be wary of unexpected requests for urgent payments – double check the sender’s email address and verify the request directly with the colleague or supplier.
3. Always question changes in payment information and confirm details directly with suppliers using the contact information you have on file. Companies rarely change their bank details.
4. Ensure you have robust payment processes and cyber security in place to protect your business, and educate employees on these.
5. Be careful with the type of information you share online about your business – criminals use can any information they find to make their scams seem more convincing.

‘Can You Spot Fraud?’ tool

Take Five to Stop Fraud has collaborated with Amazon, which has 85,000 UK small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) selling on its store, and provides free support and guidance to more than 600,000 UK SMEs through its Amazon Small Business Accelerator. Together we have created the ‘Can You Spot Fraud?’ tool which provides businesses with the confidence, knowledge, and ability to protect themselves against fraud and scams.

The tool shows users how to confidently challenge situations where criminals may be targeting their business. Recreating a busy office environment, the training takes users through a series of potentially fraudulent situations. It aims to give people the knowledge and ability to spot real-world scam calls, texts, emails and social media posts.

LET’s Go