Category: The Authorities

Late Payment by Big Business

Government statistics show that small businesses are owed on average £6,142 mostly by larger firms not paying them for goods and services on time. Bad practices range beyond simply paying late to include larger firms forcing a discount off an already agreed price, paying-to-stay (smaller companies pay larger firms to remain a supplier, but without the promise of any actual work) etc.

The research shows 37% small businesses have run into cash flow difficulties, 30% have been forced to use an overdraft and 20% cite a slowdown in profit growth. If all payments were made on time perhaps 50,000 more businesses could be kept open each year, whilst the UK economy would receive a £2.5 billion boost.

FSB is now campaigning for every large company to have a Non-Executive Director responsible for good supply chain practice – reporting to the Board as head of a sub-committee, reporting to the AGM, and writing in the Annual Report of what the company is doing to help their suppliers.  The Government is listening, and has adopted this model for its own Departments

The new proposals, building on action government has already taken to improve access to finance and the appointment of the Small Business Commissioner, include:

the call for evidence to consider the best way company boards can put in place responsible payment practices throughout their supply chain, for example giving a non-executive director specific responsibilities for the company’s prompt payment performance, promoting innovative technologies, such as the latest accounting software, to help small firms manage their payments processes, and empowering trade bodies to highlight the best and worst practices in payment behaviour

The government has also set the ambition that all its departments commit to paying 90% of undisputed invoices from SMEs within 5 days and ensure all government departments have a dedicated non-executive director responsible for prompt payment, improving payment practices and exploring how better to use technology to make payment processes more efficient.

If you have seen the problems caused by such late payments – let us know, by email.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Dublin’s Tram System Website Ransomed

The website for Dublin’s tram system (Luas) was hacked and the attacker demanded a ransom of just one bitcoin (worth about $4000).

The attacker wasn’t after money but to teach the authorities a lesson for ignoring her advice after warnings about weaknesses in their security.

“You are hacked,” the message read. “Some time ago I wrote that you have serious security holes.

You didn’t reply.

The next time someone talks to you, press the reply button.

You must pay one bitcoin in five days.

“Otherwise I will publish all data and send emails to your users.”

It then listed an address to send the bitcoin. The message was subsequently removed.

The company tweeted: “The Luas website was compromised this morning, and a malicious message was put on the home page. The website has been taken down by the IT company who manage it, and their technicians are working on it.

“We apologises to all Luas customers for the inconvenience,” Luas added on Twitter.

Luas carried 37.6 million people in 2017 and transports 100,000 passengers on average daily.

A ransomware attacker with a soul. Let’s hope the authorities take notice of the security weaknesses and don’t get caught out again.

Do you have an opinion on this matter? Please comment in the box below.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Neighbourhood Alert

The website is www.neighbourhoodalert.co.uk/

Neighbourhood Alert provides an advanced community messaging system solution for police forces, local authorities and Neighbourhood Watch.

The Neighbourhood Alert message system was initially developed to complement the existing Neighbourhood Watch service in the area and is now used by more than 30 police, fire and rescue, local authority, utility and national organisations throughout the UK.

The Alert database grew to over 500,000 members in June 2017.

It has a database of members who want to receive relevant alerts and there’s now over 50,000 members.

Registered Members 644,772

Registered Businesses 24,902

Businesses Messages Sent Today216,722

The Neighbourhood Alert system is an online, secure community messaging system that allows authorised administrators to log in and send messages to registered people in the community who have chosen to receive them.

There is also a survey tool (Community View),that helps the police to gain a real-time understanding of opinions from any community group you choose, by incorporating Experian’s Mosaic data.

There is also Social Sense which is an integrated solution that enables digital media teams to take control and manage activity across multiple social media accounts.

There is a smart phone APP providing registered users with quick and easy access to the latest alerts, as well as the ability to configure their account settings. It allows you to receive messages based on your location in real time, via push notifications.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Morrison’s to Pay Staff after Data Breach

In 2014, the personal details of thousands of Morrison’s staff including salaries, bank account details and home addresses were stolen and published online.

At the time, Morrisons said that all the staff details published were put on an unspecified location on the web for a few hours and were taken down immediately when they were discovered. It said in a statement: “We can confirm there has been no loss of customer data and no colleague will be left financially disadvantaged.” It was working with police to identify the source of the theft.

The hacker posted the information – including names, addresses, bank account details and salaries – online and sent it to newspapers.

It turned out that it was an employee, Andrew Skelton, who had posted the data online. He was caught and jailed for eight years in 2015 after being found guilty at Bradford Crown Court of fraud, securing unauthorised access to computer material and disclosing personal data.

However, Morrisons faced a huge payout to staff whose personal data were posted on the Internet after workers brought a claim against the company for “upset and distress”.

The High Court ruling that Morrisons is liable for the data breach then the Court of Appeal upheld the original decision against the supermarket. Morrisons said it would now appeal to the Supreme Court.

This case is the first data leak class action in the UK.

Morrisons had argued that it could not be held liable for the criminal misuse of its data, but three Court of Appeal judges rejected the company’s appeal, saying they agreed with the High Court’s earlier decision.

They said Morrisons was “vicariously liable for the offences committed by Mr Skelton against the claimants”.

Skelton was given eight years in prison for fraud, securing unauthorised access to computer material and disclosing personal data at a criminal trial in 2015.

The case continues.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.

Fightback Ninja Signature

Pension Scammers Caught

Four scammers who conned pension savers out of £13.7 million have been banned from the industry and banned from being company directors or trustees. The Pensions Regulator has launched a criminal investigation as these people need to be jailed for swindling so many out of their life savings.

David Austin was the leader of the group and he and his family took most of the proceeds.

The money was spent on lavish living – and only £3.2M of the cash taken was actually invested in anything and that was a risky venture.

David Austin is a former bankrupt with no experience running an investment business, but conned people into investing with him.

The scam starts with cold calling and websites set up to lure pension investors. The scammers created a series of bogus investments including one about growing truffle trees and one about a Caribbean holiday site.

The victims were told their pensions would be reinvested and they would be paid an upfront cash lump sum for making the transfer. They were also lied to that their funds would be put into assets, bonds and HMRC-compliant investments to meet the target return of 5% growth a year.

False documents were used to trick staff at the schemes where the victims had their pensions – into believing that the pension holders worked for companies linked to the scam schemes. This meant the staff were persuaded to allow £13.7 million of funds to be transferred to the scam schemes.

David Austin installed fellow criminals Alan Barratt, Susan Dalton and Julian Hanson as the trustees for the scam schemes and they were then paid to act on his instructions, allowing the scheme monies to be used at Austin’s will. Barratt and Dalton also acted as salesmen for Austin’s Spain-based business, Select Pension Investments, persuading victims to transfer their pension pots into the schemes.

A small proportion of the funds – between 10% and 25% of the amounts transferred – were given back to the victims as their “rebate”, although many victims were assured that this payment was coming from the investment provider not out of their pension pots. More than £1 million was paid to “introducers” or “agents” who used cold-calling to encourage pension members to transfer over their funds.

More than £10.3 million was transferred to businesses owned or controlled by Austin,

A whistle-blower contacted The Pensions Regulator about the scam in November 2014 who then took control of the schemes to prevent further money being removed.

If you have any experiences with scammers, spammers or time-waster do let me know, by email.

Fightback Ninja Signature