Credit, Collections & Insolvency News
Almost half (45 per cent) of finance and banking firms are failing to carry out crucial ‘ghost-buster’ checks on new business clients, newly released data from SmartSearch has shown. ‘Ghost’ firms are false entities created as part of a corporate infrastructure to hide the connection of a criminal beneficiary. They are often used by sophisticated…
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Latest Cifas data shows that levels of fraudulent conduct increased by over 11% in first half of 2022 with a warning that consumers and businesses face a growing risk of identity fraud as criminals prepare to target consumers during the cost of living crisis. The warning comes as 200,000 cases of fraudulent conduct were filed…
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UK Finance’s latest fraud report has shown that a total of over £1.3 billion was stolen by criminals through authorised and unauthorised fraud in 2021. The banking and finance industry prevented a further £1.4 billion of unauthorised fraud from getting into the hands of criminals. Unauthorised financial fraud losses across payment cards, remote banking and…
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Up to 70 per cent of property firms surveyed for an anti-money laundering campaign have not changed their approach to onboarding new customers since sanctions were imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine according to new research by SmartSearch SmartSearch says that the survey shows the worrying size of the challenge when it comes…
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A Director of Manchester pizza takeaway has been jailed for two years after he fraudulently claimed £20,000 Bounce Back Loan funds. Abdulrazag Zagroba appeared at Manchester Crown Court and was sentenced to 24 months before Recorder Hudson. The case was the first successful criminal prosecution of a bounce bank loan fraudster for the Insolvency Service,…
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Data from Barclays show young adults are the most likely age group to have been scammed in recent months, with one in four victims aged between 21 and 30. This is despite 76% of this age group saying they are confident they will not get duped. Barclays said scams often take place on tech platforms…
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Millions more people have been targeted by scammers as the cost-of-living crisis takes hold, new research by Citizens Advice has found. More than three quarters of UK adults said they have been targeted by a scammer this year – a 14% increase compared to this time last year. The most common types of scams reported…
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More than half of UK adults (56%) have or know someone who has received a suspicious communication in the last 12 months according to research from Canada Life. This equates to 29.6m people across the UK. The majority of these cases can be described as “phishing scams” (57%), when a fraudster attempts to imitate a…
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New research from Experian has highlighted that affluent, older households are being targeted by fraudsters committing credit card application fraud. Latest data from the National Fraud Hunter Prevention Service, analysed by Experian, found the detected fraud rate for cards rose by 18% in the first three months of 2022 when compared to the same period…
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Wealth trade association, PIMFA has called for the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to be given the power to direct Ofcom to act over potentially fraudulent online adverts or user-generated content that appear on search engine and social media platforms in evidence to MPs scrutinising the Online Safety Bill today. Tim Fassam, Director of Government Relations…
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The Institute of Directors has found that seven in ten (72%) of business leaders view cyber risk as a significant concern for their organisation, with 58% believing that the risk of a cyber attack on their organisation has increased. In its poll of nearly 600 directors, the IoD also found that 54% believe that every…
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Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money will be ‘lost to fraud and error as a result of the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy’s (BEIS) approach to its Covid-19 business support schemes according to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Despite providing important support to businesses across the country, BEIS’ latest estimate is that £4.9…
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A record number of scams were removed from the internet in 2021 thanks to the Active Cyber Defence programme. The National Cyber Security Centre (NSCS) has revealed that more than 2.7 million scam campaigns were stamped out in 2021, nearly four times more than in 2020. The rise reflects the expansion of NCSC services to…
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