Every year, many businesses are bilked by scam artists who take advantage of holes in companies’ purchasing procedures. Here are some of their most common tactics — and how your organization can avoid falling victim.

Most scams involve supplies that are regularly ordered by all companies: paper, ink/toner, maintenance contracts, etc. In a nutshell, con artists convince unsuspecting companies to shell out a lot of cash for shoddy supplies they never ordered.

These are the three most common scenarios, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC):

1. The Phony Invoice

The first step in this ruse is to get a business’s address and the name of an employee, often by calling a random extension to ask for help completing an order. The caller claims the accounting department lost the address and the name of the person supplies are usually sent to.

Then, the scammers send a box of unordered merchandise, wait a week or two, then send an invoice asking for as much as ten times what the the merchandise is worth. Often, the company has already used the supplies, and enough time has passed that the inflated price goes unnoticed.

2. The Pretender

In this scam, the phony supplier calls claiming to be the company’s regular vendor. It works best when the scammers reach someone unfamiliar with the normal purchasing practices — that way, the employee will often be convinced he or she is just authorizing a regularly scheduled purchase and won’t bring up prices, quantities, etc.

Of course, when the supplies arrive, so does a highly inflated bill.

3. The Gift-Horse

This scam works by creating distrust within an organization. An employee is called and offered a free promotional gift, with a passing reference to other merchandise. When the gift is shipped, so is a box of supplies, with an invoice listed the employee as the one who made the purchase.

The hope of the con artists is that when the company investigates, it will believe the employee authorized the order to get the gift, and believe that the supplies must be paid for.

Here’s how the FTC recommends businesses stay safe from those scams:

1. Assign designated buyers and train other employees – Anyone not designated to make purchases should automatically refer vendor calls to buyers, regardless of how hard the caller pushes. Scams are often the result of employees “placing” orders because they don’t know what else to do.
2. Know your rights and don’t pay – It’s illegal for someone to sell you something you didn’t order. Many companies mistakenly believe they need to return the merchandise, or pay if they can’t — but that’s not true, the FTC says.
3. Check documentation and inventory before sending a check – Many scams succeed because companies see invoices, assume they’re legit and pay the bill.

Tags: invoices, purchasing, scams