The things that you can insure these days: a friend with an equally small business told me the other day that she had bought some insurance to protect herself and her company from being ripped off by identity fraud.
She banks with one of those banks which I still think of as a building society, and they had telephoned her to suggest such insurance. She thought it was a good idea; I thought it strikes me as just another way for the financial services industry to make yet more money from us.
I may be wrong, but if someone steals your credit card number or bank account details and uses them for fraud and you can prove that they did it without your knowledge, I believe you are protected anyway. Why get insurance on top? And shouldn't the bank take responsibility for preventing the fraud, rather than charging you extra for the privilege of doing what you expect it to do in the first place - that is, protect your money and interests?
But I was reminded of this whole thing again when my accountant told me he was moving offices and that my company’s registered address would have to change, but he’d do that by contacting Companies House.
Then I saw that Companies House had been accused of not doing enough to stop identify theft. So I started to wonder about whether my friend was wise after all.
Companies House want people to file online because it means less paper (the cynic in me wonders whether the fact it will mean less paid-out in wages is the dominant factor) and apparently thieves can hack in and get a company’s details and then use that identity to order goods for which they never intend to pay.
In the old days, when every respectable villain wore a tie and a trilby, it was called the "long firm" or the "long game", although then a company was set up using an apparently reputable person as a front man. But can’t anybody just go into Companies House and do a search on a company any more. You used to be able to; it cost a few pounds but that was the way to find out if the people you were likely to be dealing with were pukka or not.
What’s to stop the criminal using that information to fraudulently obtain goods and services? Surely anyone supplying a firm they don’t know follows up the trade references they are given? If they don’t, surely it’s their fault for being conned?
One other fact grabbed my attention. In the first seven months of the year, there were 114 attempts at changing registered names without consent. That would make it around 200 for the year. Apparently, there are nearly 2,000,000 businesses registered at Companies House.
My rudimentary grasp of arithmetic tells me that is a very, very small percentage indeed. Now obviously, for the individual or company that is affected, that is one too many occurrences but, really, it can hardly be called a major problem can it?
It seems to me that companies are more likely to be affected by executives using company credit cards and having the details of these stolen by unscrupulous employees of restaurants and shops.
Ah but, I can hear you thinking, there’s chip and pin now. Not in this company there isn’t. I’ve either not been sent a pin number or I’ve lost it. Anyway, there was never any chance of my remembering it.
But I do know that I have a password for when I use the company credit card on the internet, which makes it a lot safer than using it in a restaurant or shop.
