Have you been phoned and told 'your advert has been published on (then something nice and emotive, like a child protection wallchart or diary) and your payment is now due'?
The old statistic that 50% of businesses will pay an invoice without challenging it has led, in the past, to many scammers making a tidy fortune out of corporate 'system' ... invoices being paid just because they were received. I don't think that statistic holds true today.
Now, however, the scammers are getting more creative. I had a call the other day about a wallchart that my colleague had advertised in. Oh no they hadn't! No one in my organisation would have placed an ad on a wallchart (a personal pet hate of mine anyway, sorry Chambers of Commerce!), or in a diary, or anywhere else that wasn't strictly industry related.
Then I saw a thread on the UKBusinessForum ... exactly this subject! The part that particularly caught my attention, and prompted my posting on here, was a useful site called Adscams. Mind you, Adscams do warn us to watch out for 'rouge' scammers. I didn't know they came in different colours.
Better resources are to visit industry related or Government sites, such as CAP or the Trading Standards Office who are, in fact, promoting a Scams Awareness month for February.
Any business, small or large, can fall prey to scammers, so I have no compunction whatsoever in dedicating a post on this blog to warning others about the potential traps that the increasingly clever scammers lay.
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