Businesses warned to look out for Scam Invoices

The Isle of Man Office of Fair Trading is warning businesses to look out for invoices for payment for goods and services which the business has not actually received.

These invoices may state that the business is past the due date for payment and threaten that non-payment will affect its credit rating. The invoices are often for advertising in publications or wall charts that the companies claim support the emergency services or charities.

The fraudsters idea is that businesses are too busy to or do not check orders and goods received against invoices and therefore do not spot the scam.

Chairman of the OFT Bill Henderson MHK commented “It is easy for businesses to be scammed like this. When staff are busy or under pressure to get payments out to creditors checking invoices against orders can be overlooked. However it is better for staff to spend the time on checking rather than the business being ripped off. All businesses need to be wary, this is a very simple but clever scam: don’t be pressured or tricked into paying for something you haven’t requested."