Fraud risk increasing due to recession
Thu, 09 Jul 2009
Lower employee headcounts and determined fraudsters are putting UK businesses at risk as the recession ensues, it has been claimed.
A recent survey carried out by the Institute of Directors (IoD) indicates that almost one-fifth of company directors have seen an increase in business crime this year, with fraud accounting for a third of all cases.
The study indicates that criminals are taking bolder steps to acquire business data through ID fraud and other methods, increasing the threats faced by UK firms.
Paul Jonson, partner and corporate fraud specialist at law firm Pannone, said businesses are more vulnerable during the recession as a result of the number of redundancies that have been made.
He added: "This means teams are often a few people down meaning they are rushed and perhaps not checking things correctly."
Mr Jonson added that criminal gangs have also targeted businesses by placing people in call centres in order to steal people's identities.
"If clients ask us to recover money from someone suspected of fraud we will put a freezing order on their assets, put a caution over their property and get a search order so that we can look in their property for evidence and these are things that can be done fairly quickly," he said.
BDO Stoy Hayward's latest report shows that the cost of fraud has been £960 million since the start of 2009.
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