Company hijack - are you at risk?

You may have been surprised to read about cases of company hijack recently. Also known as the ‘287’ scam, hijacking involves fraudsters forging certain documents that are filed at Companies House, form 287 being the main one. This form changes a company’s registered address but the scam also includes forging forms that change the addresses of company directors.

Once they have decided upon a target company, hijackers manually submit a new form 287, changing the company’s registered address to one that they control. Companies House only completes basic checks and then automatically processes the form and makes the requested changes. The hijackers are then in a position to use the company to order goods and services, trading off its creditworthiness. Goods delivered to the bogus address are then sold on but the supplier never receives payment.

This can obviously lead to severe problems for the real company and its directors to sort out. The first that the directors may hear of the problem is when suppliers try and enforce payment for goods ordered in the company’s name!

Companies House is aware of the risk of hijacking in this way but does not have the power or resource to investigate the contents and accuracy of forms sent in for filing. Millions of documents are submitted each year!

Instead, Companies House has introduced a new service, PROOF (PROtected Online Filing), which in conjunction with its ‘Monitor’ service should help to combat this type of fraud. These services help directors monitor changes to certain statutory documents that must be filed.

The PROOF service requires companies to sign up to file specific statutory forms in electronic format only. Paper submissions will then be refused. The Monitor service literally monitors which documents are filed at Companies House - once a new document is filed, those registered are automatically informed that a new form has been filed. This provides an early warning that a change has taken place.

Please get in touch or visit www.companieshouse.gov.uk if you would like to find out more about the availability of these services.