Fake Invoice Scams: What Small Businesses Should Know
Launch library · evergreen read
Fake invoices are deliberately built to blend into the ordinary, repetitive rhythm of running a small business. They arrive looking like a routine bill from a printer, a directory listing or a familiar software subscription, often for a service that sounds just plausible enough that a busy staff member does not think to question it during a hectic week of ordinary paperwork.
Some scams rely on confusion rather than outright, obvious fabrication, closely mimicking a real supplier's branding and layout while quietly changing only the bank details tucked away in the payment section. Staff processing a high volume of invoices each week are the intended target here, precisely because a single quiet change like this is genuinely easy to miss under normal working pressure.
A simple, consistent habit closes most of this particular risk: verify any change to bank details by phone, using a number your business already has on file from before, never a number printed on the new, unfamiliar invoice itself. Cross-checking any new supplier against an existing purchase order before releasing payment adds a further, useful layer of protection to the process.
Training whoever handles accounts payable to pause deliberately on unfamiliar invoices, and clearly separating who approves payments from who actually processes them day to day, turns a single fleeting moment of doubt into a genuine, lasting safeguard for the whole business rather than leaving it to one person's memory alone.