Police Offer Advice to Counter Construction Fraud
Operation Sterling working in partnership with Transport for London has been made aware of fraudsters targeting companies involved in construction and infrastructure projects for the public sector.
Companies involved in this type of fraud have been identified through transparency lists that are made publicly available. One project was targeted whereby the fraudsters impersonating a company claimed that their company IT systems were down and they were working manually.
They claimed that they needed the project team to update them with any recent payments made to them and to verify any outstanding invoices to be paid. The project team were suspicious and asked a number of questions which weren’t answered. They then asked the fraudster to email their request to a specific email address. No email was received.
Prevention Advice
Should you receive a call from a person claiming to be from a company and are suspicious follow this advice:
- Ask a number of questions that only you and the genuine company know such as contract number or purchase order number
- Ask for the request to be made to an email address
- Call the genuine company using your regular contact number and employee you deal with at least five minutes after ending the initial call as the phone line may have been kept open by the fraudster or use another telephone.
If your company has received a call of this nature you are advised to contact police on 101 or Action Fraud.