The thought of fraudulent activity alone is enough to fill any business owner with dread. On average, fraud affects 1 in 4 businesses every year and can have a devastating effect on your business operations, and in extreme cases lead to companies having to stop trading altogether due to the costly implications that fraud can have. In early 2018, corporate solicitors dealt with more cases that ever before with UK fraud hitting a 15 year high reaching a value of £2 billion.
Whilst there are many types of business fraud, the few that small business owners are to be most aware of due to their potential severe impact are as follows:
Identity Theft
Identity theft is when fraudsters steal the business identity via information such as financial statements, tax ID numbers, bank statements etc. and use it to access business credit.
To try and combat identity theft, business owners must ensure that any sensitive documents and bank statements are kept locked in a filing cabinet that only they have access to. Online copies of sensitive documents should be password protected with a password and username that is not obvious. It may be a good idea to regularly change passwords too. …