Employee fraud cost the UK an estimated £40m per year according to the UK’s Fraud Prevention Service, CIFAS.
Businesses are now being warned they should be more thorough when checking the identities and references of new staff if they want to avoid being victims of fraud.
According to research by employee screening service, Backgroundchecking.com, 84% of people across the UK think that lying on job application forms or CVs is commonplace.
“Many candidates and fraudsters rely on the fact that prospective employers do not check the information on, or omitted from, their CVs and applications, or discussed in their interview,” said Steve Bailey, managing director of Backgroundchecking.com.
“They therefore take this opportunity to embellish or completely reinvent the truth.”
These thoughts were echoed by credit reference agency Callcredit. The firm claimed that ‘serious organised criminals’ can infiltrate companies by falsifying CVs to place individuals in positions where they have access to money and company information.
Callcredit advised businesses to properly check the identity and address of every employee and to make sure they are fully referenced before they are allowed to start.
Bailey said the results Backgroundchecking.com’s survey showed ‘the need for people and businesses to think about checking CVs and applications for any untruths before they find out the hard way’.
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