Your contractor business could be at risk of being a victim of one of the fastest-growing crimes in the country: business identity theft. We’ve all heard of people’s stories about identity theft, but business identity theft is a threat that is serious and can cause devastating losses to businesses.
Business identity theft occurs when someone steals a company’s confidential identity information and uses it to secure credit and buy items illegally. A fraudster can open business lines of credit and even attempt to establish relationships with home improvement lenders by using stolen consumer information to obtain fraudulent loans.
What’s even more alarming about business identity theft is the substantial damages that the affected business incurs. According to Dun & Bradstreet, “it’s not unusual for the losses to be in the mid-six figures by the time the criminal activity is detected.”
Fortunately, there are steps that you can take that will help to prevent business identity fraud and protect your home improvement contractor business. Here are a few simple things you can do:
If your home improvement contractor business does fall prey to business identity theft, there are some things that you can do to mitigate the damages—but you need to take quick action. Here are some steps to take right away:
On the bright side, many lenders, including EnerBank USA, are implementing additional security precautions to prevent business identity theft. This includes implementing a procedure that requires verbal verification of all dealer requests to change business bank account information. If you are not aware of any additional security measures your lender has implemented, ask them what they are doing to protect against business identity theft. Your lender can play an important role in protecting your business from identity theft.
For more information about how to protect your business from identity theft, go to businessIDtheft.org. And remember—you have invested significant time and energy in creating your home improvement contractor business, so you should take extra care to protect your business from identity fraud and theft.
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