Warning on scam letters impersonating Companies House

Companies House does not charge a fee to set up web filing and the accounts provide multi factor authentication and the ability to digitally authorise people to file for companies.

In a warning, Companies House stressed: ‘We’ve had reports of suspicious letters claiming to be from Companies House. The letter claims you need to make payment for enhanced web filing access.

‘Please do not follow any instructions in this letter. It’s a scam.’

The letter looks genuine with the Companies House logo and Cardiff address at the top, and includes an eight-digit payment code number.

The scammers inform the business’ director that they ‘wish to alert you to a time sensitive matter regarding your web filing access’.

They then go on to ask for an immediate payment of £48 to be transferred to HMRC via short url web address or QR code. The inclusion of the short url should be an immediate red flag as no government body or organisation would use a shortened web address to require a payment.

In this instance ,the short url was flagged as a phishing web address by Accountancy Daily’s firewall.

Never click on the short URL as it is a phishing attack and could infect computers with a virus or worse.

The letter also has a box with red text warning that companies that do not pay will be struck off the register.

The red warning states: ‘Failure to do so will regrettably result in the suspension of your web filing benefits’.

The fraudsters even have the cheek to say that ‘once payment is successfully processed, await a confirmation letter’.

It even includes details of how to pay at a bank or building society, with the payee to be ‘HM Revenue and Customs only’. This payment would be processed of course, but the scam is targeting business owners who pay online or via the QR code.

The scam has been running for at least five months so it is critical to ignore any demand for payment and never just pay a bill without verifying that the payment demand is genuine and the account details, if provided, are actually those of Companies House.

Guidance, Reporting scams pretending to be from Companies House

Accountancy Daily

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