Internet fraudsters (phishers) who try to trick online users into passing over bank/creditcard/other private details over the web are moving up the food chain and attacking high net worth individuals. More sophisticated individuals surely won't get caught out by these scams, I hear you ask.

Well, last month, thousands of senior US executives were targetted with e-mails that looked like official court summonses from a court in San Diego. They were told to click on a link to download the full court summons. Anyone who followed the link unwittingly downloaded and installed key logging software that recorded their passwords and computer use and sent it to the phishers. A second piece of software enabled the gang to control the computer remotely. Hundreds were caught out.This scam led the New York Times to coin a new phrase  for phishers who target upmarket individuals- "whalers"!

The message is clear. Organisations can't rely totally on IT guys to combat Internet scams but must train all staff (even senior executives!)to be aware of the technological, commercial and legal risks and need to develop programmes to stop phishers from being successful.

May 12, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Buying credit reports on small businesses often leads to buyer frustration, as the level of available data on small private firms is "limited" so to speak. Some companies, though, have found a way of making credit decisioning easier on this type of business- they do an additional consumer credit check on the business owner at his home address.

I was informed by a Graydon customer the other day that he had bought a business report from Graydon showing a clear credit picture, then bought a consumer report via Graydon's consumer gateway on the man that owned the business and discovered 10 CCJs against the person registered at his home address. Result- an easier decision!

To do this , however, credit departments must ensure that their credit application forms include a request for permission to check out the individual behind the business in keeping with Data Protection law.

May 8, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Research in the credit arena continues to point to the fact that SMEs should be doing more to protect themselves from bad debt, and protracted payments from customers. I read some research over the weekend  suggesting that 50% of SMEs continued to deliver goods on credit terms to debtors when unpaid debts were already over 90 days old. Secondly, only 3% of the respondents in this study said they turned to a debt collection agency for help, but when they did, debts were already on average 11 months old. The interesting aspect of this research was that it was looking into trade supplier habits involving companies that had gone bust leaving those suppliers with write offs. Once again, it looks as if there is an imbalance between SME enthusiasm for chasing sales revenue, and unwillingness or lack of expertise in making sure those sales are paid for.   

May 6, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Just hours after the publication of the Competition Commission's final report into the Grocery trade, some supermarkets were beginning to bleat on about how the costs of organising and paying for an Ombudsman to police activities in the sector would lead to increased prices in the shops for the consumer. However, the supermarkets already accept that some things do have to get in the way of delivering lower and lower prices to end users. For instance, I'm sure child labour in overseas sweatshops would help to reduce prices of goods on the shelves, but no one, including the supermarkets, accepts this as an ethical way of trading. The Ombudsman has been recommended by the CC because it thinks the supermarkets have continually and unfairly transferred excessive risks and unexpected costs on to their suppliers. Shouldn't this be seen by the supermarkets as unethical trade practice too? A touch of sour grapes methinks.

May 1, 2008 | Permalink | Comments (0)