This is where a criminal poses as one of your regular suppliers and sends an email asking you to change the bank account details that you already hold on file for them.

You are then tricked into sending money to the new account which is controlled by the fraudster rather than the genuine supplier.

Fraudsters take time to build up knowledge about your business to improve the chances of the fraud being successful. This could include scanning your website for details of genuine suppliers that they can use to their advantage to make any email they send more credible.

This type of fraud is often only discovered when your legitimate supplier chases you for non-payment making the recovery of funds from the fraudulent account very difficult.

What to look out for:

• An unexpected request to change the bank details of an existing supplier
• You receive more frequent than usual or duplicate invoices for a product or service
• The style and format of invoices sent by the fraudster may look different to previous ones
• The ‘new’ bank account details provided may look out of character, for example, a large supplier such as Dell, is very unlikely to bank with a smaller financial institution such as Monzo
• The invoiced amount looks out of character for the services provided i.e., would it make sense for a £10,000 payment to be made for party supplies

Top tips to reduce the risk being a victim of invoice and mandate fraud:

• Confirm supplier bank details directly with suppliers using their established on-file details before any payments are made
• Make sure you follow your usual payment process even if it’s urgent and where possible ensure two people independently review the payment details
• Ensure that all staff who process supplier invoices or can change bank details are adequately trained to check for irregularities in supplier details including changes to supplier names, addresses and invoiced amounts

If you believe you have been a victim of invoice and mandate fraud, please contact us immediately on our UK Client Services line 0800 023 1441 or +44 (020) 7367 7881 if calling outside the UK.