Invoice Fraud: What Every Kiwi Business Should Watch Out For
Scams come in many shapes and forms, as a business you're even more of a target for scammers. With 43% of businesses targeted in 2024, it's more important than ever before to stay vigilant, be aware of scams and on the look out for unruly emails, calls or invoices.
What are invoice scams?
Invoice scams are one of many ways scammers will try and redirect fund from yourself or your customers into their own accounts. While there's a couple of different ways an invoice scam can take place, they all centre around sending a falsified invoice in an attempt to divert funds.
What are the types of invoice scams?
There are three main types of scams to keep an eye out for, both to protect your business and to protect your customers.
1. Receiving an invoice for something you didn't purchase
You might receive an email from a well-known or trusted business, with an attached invoice or link (or even both). The catch? You haven't signed up with the company, recently engage with them or the email doesn't line up with when you're regularly invoiced.
2. You're overcharged for a product or service
You might be overcharged for a service or product that you were initially quote less for. Or you might sign up for an online product or service with low fees and find your account is being overcharged.
For example, you might need to convert a document type and sign up to a service that charges a one off low fee. But over time you notice your account or card is still being charged, for amounts greater than the one off fee.
3. You receive an intercepted or modified invoice
This scam comes in two different forms:
The first: Involves someone sending an email with either an attached modified invoice or a link to make payment. This is often accompanied with a sense of urgency, encouraging you to make payment as soon as possible to avoid legal action.
The second: This is more complex and targeted, taking place over weeks or even months. A scammer will gain access to an organisation's system through malware or a phishing link and then observe how the business works. Once they've gained access and learned what they need to they'll send out an email with a modified invoice from the businesses email address and then delete the email from the sent folder, so the business is none the wiser.
As a business, you're at risk of being sent one of these modified invoices, as well as being impersonated by a scammer. This makes it even more important to stay on the lookout for suspicious links, emails, phone calls or invoices in order to keep your company and your customers secure.
What to look out for?
Some red flags to be aware of to keep your business, team and customers safe when it comes to invoices.
Email address doesn't match or looks different than usual
Payment details don’t match previous invoices and you haven't been notified of changes to payment
An unexpected invoice from a company you haven't purchased or signed up to
The sender is putting pressure on you to pay immediately, threatening you with legal action if you don't comply.
Shortened or suspicious links in an email are something to be wary of
As scammers become more and more sophisticated, it's becoming more and more important to take steps to safeguard your business. If you're interested in more ways to keep your business safe, be sure to check out our other blogs.