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Company ID Theft

Protect Your Company
PROTECT YOUR COMPANY IDENTITY FOR AN ANNUAL FEE OF £240;
JUST £20 PER MONTH (PLUS VAT)

The home office states that identity fraud costs Britain £1.7 Billion a year. For private companies however the cost of corpoarte identity theft isn’t just financial; a company stands to lose its hard earned reputation and the confidence of customers – two things that business simply can not afford to lose. Common sense and due diligence are key to preventing business from becoming one of these victims.

This type of identity theft can have appalling consequences for businesses; your company assets could be stolen and bank accounts emptied by the fraudulently appointed directors; the fraudsters could steal your company identity and trade on your company credit history, ordering goods and services for which you would be ultimately responsible for; or you could sell goods to fraudsters who have stolen a legitimate company’s identity, for which you will never receive payment.

These criminal activities can be achieved simply by fraudsters submitting forms to;

  • Change the business’ registered address
  • Change the appointed Company Secretary or Director’s details
  • Appoint new directors

Companies House will not notify the Company Secretary or Directors that these forms have been lodged. Neither will they check any of the details for validity.

To combat this form of identity theft, DDE offers two subscription based services, which assist you in protecting your company against the risk of business identity theft and fraud.

Company monitoring

For an annual subscription of £80 plus VAT we will monitor your company for you. You will be notified whenever forms to change the registered office, the board of directors or registered mortgages are filed with Companies House. We will also inform you when accounts, annual returns, or changes to the share capital are filed. Upon any of these documents being filed you will receive an urgent email with an electronic copy of the document attached.

This allows you to review the document and to check whether this was a genuine change of information or not. Companies House has no obligation by law to verify documents filed are genuine, the responsibility lies with the Director of the company.

Company Name Monitoring

For an annual subscription of £160 plus VAT we will monitor your company name for you. This service monitors all companies that are incorporated under a given name; by simply making a subtle adjustment to your existing name a company can legally operate without you realising.

As shown in case study 2, fraudsters can steal your company name by making a subtle change, like the addition of ‘UK’. We now offer this detection service. Every month we will search out and report to you every connotation of your name so that you can protect yourself from this type of fraud.

To protect your company against business identity theft contact us today on 0844 561 6852 or email us.

CASE STUDY 1

Earlier last year directors of a company which has a £3,500,000 turnover, discovered that a set of accounts had been filed for their company showing a £3,800,000 operating loss alongside a note stating it was likely a receiver would be appointed shortly. It is believed that it will take the company Directors weeks to go through the Courts to remove the false accounts. This disturbing development follows concerns over the fraudulent use of Director’s identities to set up bogus companies, and the lack of protection afforded to auditors details. It was recently reported that one auditor a month has details stolen to help front fake businesses.

CASE STUDY 2

A well known Solicitor’s Firm changed to a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP). Like normal limited companies LLPs need to register with Companies House and their identities are then vulnerable to fraud. An employee working within the Firm’s property department and with access to incoming mail set up a false LLP and registered it with Companies House. Using the name of the Solicitor’s Firm and by adding ‘UK’ to the name he perpetrated £1.9 million in mortgage frauds in just over a 12 month period. When the frauds were discovered he absconded. He has not been traced nor have any of the proceeds of the frauds been recovered. The damage to the Solicitor Firm’s reputation was irreparable.