Fake Invoice Scams: How Businesses Get Tricked — and How to Stop Paying Them

Invoice fraud rarely looks dramatic. It looks like an ordinary invoice from a supplier you know — with one detail changed.

The common patterns

• Changed bank details — a real supplier's invoice with a new account number, often arriving after an email account was compromised.
• Look-alike suppliers — invoices from a domain one letter away from your real vendor's.
• Invoices for nothing — directory listings, "renewals" or services never ordered.
• Inflated or duplicated invoices — the same invoice paid twice, or with an edited amount.

What to check in the invoice

1. Bank details vs. your vendor master file — any change is verified by phone, using a number you already had.
2. Sender domain — exact match, character by character.
3. Totals — line items, tax and total add up; tax rates fit the date and place.
4. Invoice numbers and dates — in sequence with previous invoices from the same supplier.
5. Edits — inconsistent fonts or alignment around amounts and account numbers.
6. Duplicates — the same file, or the same number and amount, submitted before.

Controls that stop the loss

• Two-person approval for new vendors and bank-detail changes.
• Call-back verification on a known number for any payment-instruction change.
• Match invoices to purchase orders and receipts.

Automate the first pass

ThisVerify checks invoices for edited amounts and account numbers, arithmetic and tax, editing software and duplicate submissions — and marks what needs a call.