Metropolitan Police mandate fraud campaign
A new campaign to raise awareness of mandate fraud.
The Metropolitan Police Specialist Crime and Operations unit (MPS SC&O) has launched a campaign to raise awareness of mandate fraud. It has provided guidance below, and two posters that you can download, print and display in your relevant department (see end of page).
As part of its prevention strategy the MPS SC&O will meet up with organisations to give best practice advice and reduction strategies. To arrange a visit by Falcon Prevention, please contact E: krishan.kapur@met.pnn.police.uk T: 020 7230 8157.
- Be suspicious of any request to change a bank account or payee details.
- Emails may have been hacked, meaning that a legitimate email from anyone requesting bank account changes need to be verified. This includes from within your organisation. Always do your own individual verification checks.
- Always check details very carefully. A genuine email: yoursupplier@payment.co.uk can be changed to yoursupplier@payment.com or your.supplier@payment.co.uk or yoursuppliers@payments.co.uk.
- Payment details must be checked against known and original details, never from the details on the request. Changes must be verified with whoever is asking for the changes. This request could come from within your company or from your supplier. Take a sceptical approach.
- Consider the use of code words from when an account is set up as part of the verification process. Also how changes to bank accounts, set-ups and payments are completed.
- Depending on how the banking process works at your particular organisation, consider restricting who can change and make payments and that any notification to a change is communicated back to you from the bank and who that should be.
- All documents which relate to payments must be kept secure. Online bank accounts can be hacked into and payment details altered so that money is transferred into a fraudster’s account. Think about computer security.
- Check bank statements carefully for anything suspicious.
- Where changes to a bank account involve an amount that is above a certain threshold, consider a higher level of verification – work with your bank to impose conditions on accounts.
- No matter what verification processes are put in place, they can be circumvented by poor judgement of staff and at worse the deliberate action of staff who are knowingly committing fraud – which is why the process for how payments are made and changed needs to be robust.
See the Metropolitan Police website.