40% of businesses in Latvia have experienced financial fraud – in most cases businessmen have experienced attempts by scammer to get hold of their internet banking passwords and other information that would allow them to illegally gain access to their accounts.
Results of a survey by SEB Bank shows that 80% of surveyed businesses can identify scams in time and successfully protect their financial resources.
Scams aimed at private persons are more common. However, cases involving businesses usually involve larger amounts of money. Unfortunately, there are also cases when businesses buy into scams and lose their money.
Survey data indicates that of the businesses that have experienced scam attempts, 19% received e-mails or text messages with requests to urgently perform some action in their internet bank account, and provide username, password or bank card data.
16% of respondents mentioned having experienced phishing attempts – scammers made calls, pretending to be bank or other service providers’ representatives, asking call recipients to provide internet banking data, approve access and payment requests with Smart-ID or other code calculator.
SEB Bank’s compiled data indicates that 12% of interviewed businesses also received fake receipts for goods or services.
SEB Bank’s Security Office manager Mārcis Pelcis explains that businesses experience scam attempts less often than private persons. However, “the amounts defrauded are generally much higher when compared with the private sector”.
“In meetings with businesses we can see their financial managers and accountants are aware of modern scam methods and know how to recognise them. Some of the businesses also organise training, but these businesses are in the minority,” said Pelcis, adding that if someone calls them allegedly on behalf of a bank and requests some actions to be performed, businesses always have to confirm if the person on the other side is a bank employee.
Pelcis recommends businesses to follow correspondence with partners – verify e-mails and accounts before making any payments. At the same time, cooperation offers from potential partners should be critically evaluated before making any decisions.
SEB Bank’s survey shows that 7% of fraud victims successfully recovered their lost money. Unfortunately, 13% of businesses lost their money to various scams.
It is noteworthy that 80% of businesses managed to identify scammers in time. More than half of businesses (56%) do not offer any training to their employees in this area.
“We regularly update the topic of financial fraud in the business environment, as well as encourage the training of employees who may become victims of fraud as individuals. The survey shows that in the daily life of entrepreneurs, fraud comes in all sorts of ways – these are attempts to defraud money by providing the data of non-existent companies for making transfers, as well as “hacking” e-mails by searching for information in order to access company accounts. For example, this spring one businessman bought a tractor. The payment was made but no tractor was supplied. The reason is because the “supplier’s” company never existed to begin with,” says Pelcis.
Information from Finance Latvia Association on fraud indicate that in the first half-year people have lost more than EUR 5 million to various scams. The total amount of money that scammers weren’t able to steal thanks to their scams failing is EUR 4.3 million (statistical data applies to four Latvia’s largest commercial banks).
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