Beware of Fake Invoice Scam, warns ASA

Two points. First, take full notes in your day-book/diary of all phone conversations. Second, DO NOT ASSUME - it only makes an ASS of U and ME.

Peter Edwards

It might be wise for all FM's/HR people to re-train, including Directors, Managers, Goods In, Reception, if not everyone. I believe we all know the rules, but they may not be to the fore of the mind as usual day to day business is comparatively safe for long periods. Wnen you are leaving the office for lunch or end of the day, or end of year accounts taking up your time, these are vulnerable times for a cold call for real business and for scammers/phishers. As I say, time to re-train everyone maybe? For me it is an annual refresher, and a daily chore to be suspicious. For business, I was taught compassion, empathy, confidentiality and the hidden thought, 'trust no-one'!

Try National School of Governance for data protection training on line, L1, L2, and L3. if you think it a needed move in your organisation. Some points to provoke thought:

It's not all about locking cabinets, power down your P/C nightly, wear your company access badge, take it off in the street, lock P/C when away from your desk, confront non-badge wearers on-site....

Industrial Intelligence - spying by any other definition is obtained in many ways but especially externally when on fag breaks, after hours pub, cold calling, posing as someone else, internal employees on the make from others seeking knowledge. Speak business in appropriate places and to the right people only.

Fire Drill - a time when all your doors are unlocked, you are occupied on the drill and then the phone call comes in. Was company data secured as you left? Cabinets, P/C's locked, did you leave your wallet/purse on your desk, how many unsecured laptops were left on desks?

Phone etiquette - Don't bother if it is internal, a preferred supplier, unknown caller, alledgedly your bank/other. Trust no-one every time and have a phone etiquette policy. Question the person on the line. Ask for their number, company detail, query reason for the call, think quickly what you need to know about the caller. Explain on any subject case, you will call them back with an answer at a later time. Say I'll email you the details once I've drawn up the answers you require. Confirm nothing, especially if they want money, or detail on the company or another staff member who at the time, is unavailable.

Email policy should dictate some obvious stuff to apply to both work and home. If an email comes in from the bank/supplier/contractor, never follow the link in the mail. Reply from your known data in your contacts list, call people from your known phone contact list. Never open an attachment unless you trust the source (some years back an ICT Researcher crashed a server network of some 60+ P/C's with a virus on an attachment. He was researching platform stability and internet protection, so had no excuse really). Always question the source of information.

Hindsight is a good thing, we don't have it in every situation, so trust must be questioned. The measures to safeguard you and your organisation take seconds. I'm suggesting when the phone rings, be suapicious, ask questions, answer none, verify the detail, get back to the caller by other means! Make sure it's all genuine; google it, share with peers (as on here, what a long thread), report spam/phishing to providers of ICT, and report to Police or bodies as others have detailed earlier in this thread.

Unless you have a full data protection policy and active training elements I cannot see any reason for disiplinary action (empathy). This points at organisational failure and not employees failing. Lessons learned can give the hair dryer treatment quietly, with simple documented and discussed incident. Then passed on to all staff gives a real feel to everyone of the real-time dodges that do go on.

Court = caught. Freudian slip. :-)

I had a call on Monday from a gentleman claiming to be from our local police station, "nothing to worry about, but I need to speak to someone senior in your company".

I've not yet been court out by these scams, so immediately suspected he was going to try and sell an advert in some 'police' publication. As soon as I started to ask him for his details he hung up ! What a surprise.

OMG! Reading through this thread I just cannot believe how many gullible people there are out there or and more to the point how easily you all part with your money!!

For a start don't any of you wonder how these companies are getting their information on you? Half of you "don't remember" having conversations with these companies but they seem to know a lot about you. Any company or individual that holds information or data on another MUST be registered on the Data Protection Register. If they are not, they have committed a criminal offence by either gathering, holding or passing that information on to others.

If anyone calls me the first question I ask is who it is. If I don't know them I ask how they got my details and I never ever admit who I am to anyone that I don't know first. That being the case anyone trying this scam on me would not get very far. If I worked for a company and somebody called with the sort of nonsense that has been suggested above, you just ask for a copy of the invoice, proof of agreement etc. If none arrives you simply cut them off and ignore them if they call again.

You all have voted in an MP. Use him or her to do what they are being paid for. Unless enough of us start going along and complaining to them in their surgeries about this sort of thing, they won't get off their fat little behinds and introduce legislation that stops this kind of thing in the first place. After all they are still getting a pension, make them earn it!

I am the latest victim of this. I bought a post office and village store just over a year ago. Busy days and many suppliers to deal with I was lured into this scam. The caller started by 'the order you placed for the Drugs Awareness Books is now ready to be donated to a school" and the payment is now required. My business is based in a very close knit community and I have always believed in giving back to community. Without much thought or investigation I provided my card details and £ 149 was soon charged. Again received a call after two months and same old script and this time paid £ 159 but this time asked not to be bothered again as I want to put my efforts into my local community instead. Thought nothing further. It was my wife investigated as she smelt a rat when sat down to do a quarterly VAT return. She has contacted the company asking for a full refund but they are threatening they have the telephone conversation taped and denying refunds. Be aware and help with establishing my own rights for refunds in this case plesae.

these types of company always withold their number. I have a policy which all my staff enforce. We will not buy off any company that feels the need to hide its number. The call doesn't usually last very long.

We've been contacted by a comapny called Safety 1st, based in Manchester , they are selling Fire Safety Awareness books for schools. After receiving and invoice for £299 plus VAT I smelt a rat and refused to pay. After many phone calls, invoice demands and threats to take us to court I asked for the recording of the agreement to purchase these books on behalf of the school. I duly received a recording, but this was the second one where they were claiming I'd already agreed to the purchase. I asked again for the first recording... needless to say this has never arrived but I did get an email stating that they have closed our account and cancelled the books (although they told me on 2 seperate occasions that the school hed received the books)

So my advice to any one is to demand to hear the recording when you agreed to purchase the books... I bet there aren't many who can produce that!

Apologies if this has been mentioned already but it's a fairly long thread!

Seems like this scam company is doign the rounds again; I've been contacted at work by "The Drug & Alcohol Group" saying that my boss (who they named) has agreed to sponsor them and they want to speak with him. He wasn't available so I took a number, but when I asked him, of course he knew nothing about it.

The same company have just called back and a colleague told the person we were not interested, to which she responded that we would then be passed to accounts for payment of the "books".

The number I took yesterday is 0161 335 9289 and this comes up as http://childprotectionukltd.co.uk/contact.html

This site looks legit but the method in which they obtain their funding is not. Why are they still able to trade?!?!

Why is everyone worried, they are are no more than a bunch of con artist - you know this and they know it to.
They won't ever take you to court. They'll only scare you with court action and phone you everyday so you'll pay them.

Penman and summerland from the mirror news paper have a blog site on all the cons out there - worth looking at!

I have a friend who has received a letter from a company called CSS saying she owes £370 + court costs and interest to a client of theirs - 1st Credit Ltd - and stating she must pay in excess of £500 or go to court. She knows for sure she doesn't owe anyone any money and they are 'unable' to give her any information regarding the amount due to data protection. She has received two calls from an automated system in the last month from 1st credit congratulating her as her loan has been approved - a loan she never requested or applied for. She is a single mum on benefit and the whole thing reeks of scam.

Apparently these companys can take you to the county court for what they say is a verbal aggreement.i spoke to the trading standards who said send a recorded deleivery letter stating under the data protection act,you request a recording of the verbal agreement within 7 days otherwise there is no contract between you and no payment will be made...so far l have heard nothing (6 days) this company tries to frighten people into paying..

I just received a phone call from Cloverleaf publications, thanking me for agreeing to support local schools. Fortunately, I know that nobody in my organisation would have agreed to it, so it was a short call. It sounds very much like the scam discussed on this thread.

I have received 4 letters too date,demanding payment,firstly do they not have to prove that it was a verbal agreement. i feel these letters are harrassement,they come weekly on the dot.

BE AWARE of a DOUBLE scam whereby the Database Recovery Service - a "Government" organisation legitimise a "good" compaqny who will, at their intervention on your behalf, reduce your liability to them for verbally-agreed advertising purchases. MSM Media UK Ltd. kindly drop £500 to regretfully relieve you of the £250 already at print and reduced by 5% on immediate payment!
Then it's all too late! More later! Be very alert!

I have just received a invoice today foy £145 for a child safety initiative for books that l am suppose to want my local school to have. I will of course not pay,l phoned my local police (hampshire) who said ignore it,. The ploice cannot do anything as no laws have been broken!!!!!!!

Who are these people? How can they lawfully trade? Has anyone got contact details for the,

The other scam that you may all be aware of and still comes up at least once a year is the fake invoice. We are a large multi national and therefore handle large amounts of invoices every day; this is the type of company these scammers like as sometimes invoices slip through. The invoices nearly always are registered in Holland and usually for small amounts in GBP, the last time I saw this reported to the press the estimate was close on £1m that year. We have a double sign-off system with PO's so nothing goes on the ledger without scrutiny however I can think of may companies that have fully automated systems and these invoices are just paid.

Thank goodness for this forum. I run a very small company. I was spoken to today by someone saying that the Fire Prevention leaflets I had agreed to sponsor were ready for distribution to local schools. The caller asked me to nominate a school or they would ask the local Education Department to distribute the leaflets on my behalf. I am recovering from Flu at the moment and at first was taken in by the caller. As I started to question the caller he said I owed them £149 for the leaflets. I said I would not have sponsored anything I might have agreed to business advertising but not sponsorship. The caller then said he could defer my payment term for one month and would get his supervisor to call me back. The call ended. By this time my mind was racing I know I have spent a small fortune for me on advertising. Anyway a woman then called me back by now my flu ridden head was starting to function, I told the woman I did not sponsor anything she then passed me back to the original caller. He said they had my original call on tape. I told him to provide a transcript of the tape and send it with an invoice. I said I was not paying anything. He then said I will pass it to our legal department then. I told him to F%^& off and put the phone down. I'll let you know what if anything pops up. I enjoy being a beligerent individual from time to time it makes a nice break from being pleasant all the time.

I too had a call yesterday from a company trying to confirm my agreement to 'sponsor' Drug Awareness books for schools. They had my name and also the name of the local school. I asked the cost and they quoted £139, I did not agree to anything, they said that the books were ready for despatch. I said that we already support our local college with the Connexions programme and work experience and that this was not something we were interested in. Beware, they are very persistent!

This is still happening. I was called yesterday 1st Feb 2010 by a company called Cloverleaf (i think) i wasn't really listening. They said about the books for children & that I had agreed to buying them. Then they put me through to the Admin department, this is when I said I had no knowledge of them or paperwork. He replied with I will send you the paperwork. I hope this is the end of the matter, but reading other peoples comment I think not.

Don't get involved in any argument or discussion. Simply ask them for their company name and address, explaining that you wish to check with their local trading standards officer to see if they are a reputable company. You won't hear anything more.

Beware of a few of these so called publishers....millenium,tulip,vardis,reaburn,safety first...I could go on .all based in liverpool or manchester they are completly bombarding me with threats,invoices and phone calls...don't agree to anything over the phone,ask them to email the details(for some reason they won't do this) publishing houses who don't use email??? Makes them traceable. There is a gov site which lists publishers who have had lots of complaints, look it up it may save any one being worried by these scammers letters
http://www.advertisingprotectionagency.org/Monitoring.htm

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