A new and very worrying telecoms scam has appeared in the UK over the last couple of weeks!
One company is believed to have lost a staggering £200,000. This could have been avoided had some simple security steps been in place.
The scam begins by the targeted victim company receiving a bogus call from Fraudsters pretending to be BT. The purpose of the call is to identify who the business currently has it telephone lines and telephone numbers with.
Once this apparently harmless information is secured the Scam is in place.
Next the fraudsters call your telephone services providers pretending to be you. They advise that the office has been closed by a major incident such as a flood. For business continuity they request that your phone lines are diverted to a temporary number.
‘The Gotcha’ is now in play!
Worryingly, they will already have some of bank details! Using these they will start to make some transfers/payment requests from your business bank account.
Should your bank be suspicious or decide to call you regarding theses cash movements, the call will follow the divert to the fraudsters. They take the call and approve the transactions – Game Set and Match!
How to better protect your business.
From a telecoms provider perspective, we protect our customers by ensuring that we check authorised signatory details before agreeing any customers’ changes. What is more we are currently in the processing of beefing up our checks. In future, to make changes our customers’ will have to pass a ‘three phase authentication process’.
Does your current provider have a security process to protect against this type of fraud attempt?
We are pleased to report that we have thwarted one of these scam attempts already.
Scams and frauds alas come in all shapes and sizes, with telecom fraud considered to be the largest current global fraud problem. It is estimated that successful fraud of this nature averages a massive £23,000 loss for each company that is hit. This size of loss can in many cases create major problems for the victim business and their employees.
You can protect yourself and your business from many forms of telecoms fraud by taking some very simple steps. For some helpful hints and tips go to our webpage – https://evoketelecom.com/other-services/telecom-fraud-protection/
If you are ever in doubt or feel like you might benefit from our experience and guidance, then please do feel free to call our helpful friendly team on 01509 278278 who will be more than happy to help.
