Invoice Fraud and its Impact on Business

Invoice Fraud

Kate Barnes, Head of Dispute Resolution, recently acted for a business owed a substantial sum of money by a company it had carried out work for.

The company said it had already paid.

Investigations uncovered that the company had been the victim of “invoice fraud”.

What is Invoice Fraud?

Invoice fraud is when an emailed invoice is intercepted and the recipient sent a fraudulent email giving new bank details for payment.

The company had paid the money but to fraudsters not to our client.

In this situation, the law says that the original invoices remain outstanding so the company had to pay our client for the work done.

The result was they were considerably out of pocket but Kate’s client had received their money.

Kate says “Everyone, including businesses, should be very cautious about bank details received by email. If you have received an email from Kerseys you will have seen our warnings about changing bank details. If you are paying anyone by bank transfer and the details have arrived by email always phone the recipient, on a known number, and check the details. Otherwise you risk having to pay twice.”

The BBC wrote a further article on this which can be read here.

How Kerseys Can Help

If you require advice about a business dispute please contact Solicitor Kate Barnes.