In a letter to the Registrar of Companies, FSB National Chairman Carol Undy warned that a growing number of small businesses are falling victim to the corporate version of identity theft, sometimes known as a Form 287 scam, a reference to the name of the Companies House form that is completed when requesting a change of registered office.
The crimes follow a similar pattern. Gangs “hijack” details of registered companies by filling in a Form 287, forging a director's signature, and sending it to Companies House – the agency responsible for the registration of companies. They then impersonate the companies, using their details to order goods. The first thing the genuine business owner normally knows about it is when bills for the goods arrive.
The issue was highlighted earlier this year by the Metropolitan Police Service, which warned that the loss to industry through this type of fraud was thought to be in excess of £50 million per year.
The Met and Companies House have introduced electronic filing and e-mail alerts to notify companies about the receipt of documents, but the FSB believes that the system is still fundamentally flawed because Companies House only keeps a record that documents have been received, rather than checking the accuracy of those documents.
The FSB letter warns that companies cannot get fraudulent information removed from their file without a legal judgment, “even if there is overwhelming evidence that identity theft has taken place.”