Fraud

I, too, unfortunately encounter it more and more with my clients. Recently also confronted with this with two relations. One company was scammed in a very sophisticated way for about 1 million and on the third order it became clear what was going on. Another company by some luck caught on to it on the first order.

Here are the figures from fraud insurance provider Allianz Trade.

Four out of five (79%) companies experienced fraud attempts in the past two years compared to 51% in last year's survey. A majority of companies suffered actual losses in the process. So says a survey by Allianz Trade. It also shows that 52% of companies have been victims of employees stealing money or goods and 45% of third-party invoice fraud.

For half of the victims, the damages amounted to 50,000 euros or less, for 20% between 50,000 and 100,000 euros, for 12% between 100,000 and 200,000 euros. In addition, 15% of the damages exceeded two tons, 4% of which were between 500,000 and 1 million euros. In 1% of the claims, the fraud amount even exceeded 5 million euros.

Although attention in the media is focused on cybercrime, the research shows that much of the fraud is committed by the company's own employees: 52% steal money or goods, 49% are guilty of expense report fraud, 37% falsify documents and 25% commit industrial espionage. The latter is much more common in the Netherlands than in Belgium (56% vs. 38%). Internal fraud is significantly more often committed by men (64%) than women (20%). Most fraud occurs in the Finance department (36%), followed by commerce: 34% in Belgium and 14% in the Netherlands. The operations department is in 3rd place with 26%. Internal fraudsters are often employed for a relatively short time (1 to 5 years).

External fraud mainly involves sending false invoices (45%), followed by theft or destruction of dart (29%), theft via computer systems (26%), buyer fraud (21%) and CEO fraud (11%).

Source Allianz Trade 2023