As a small limited company owner in the UK, protecting your business from fraud should be a top priority. Over the past 5 years, there has been a significant increase in corporate identity theft in the UK, a growing concern for business owners.

According to Action Fraud, the UK’s national reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime, there were over 17,000 reported cases of corporate identity theft in the UK between 2016 and 2021. This represents a 26% increase compared to the previous five-year period. With this in mind, it’s essential that you take steps to protect your business from the risks of corporate identity theft.

What is the Companies House Follow Service?

One way to protect your business is by registering for the Companies House Follow service. It’s designed to reduce the risk of fraud by sending you free email alerts when Companies House receives any filings relating to your company. This includes everything from changes to your company’s registered address, to new appointments and resignations of directors.

These email alerts will also notify you if Companies House removes any transactions, which could indicate fraudulent activity. By receiving these alerts, you can quickly identify any changes made to your company’s filings and take action to address any problems before they escalate.

How do you register for Follow alerts?

1. Visit Gov.uk and search for Companies House, and ‘Find Company Information’. 
2. You’ll need to Sign in or Register to set up or access your account, which will enable you to search the Register for the name of your company.
3. Once the company record comes up, you’ll see beneath the name a green button to ‘Follow this company’. 
4. Click the link and you’re done! You’ll now receive notifications whenever Companies House receives or removes any updates.

What else can you do to protect your company?

To further protect your company from fraud, you should also consider registering for the Companies House PROOF scheme. 

This scheme prevents Companies House from accepting paper forms for certain transactions, such as changes to your company’s Registered Office address or details of company directors. Instead all changes must be submitted electronically through the Companies House WebFiling Service or through authorised third-party software.

We strongly recommend these schemes to clients, and automatically register all client companies with PROOF.

In summary…

In summary, corporate identity theft is a growing concern for small limited companies in the UK, and methods used are becoming more creative. It’s important therefore that Directors take advantage of simple, and free, steps like these to protect their businesses as far as possible.

If we can help at all, either with your online filings for your company, bringing your Companies House record up to date or to help improve the security of your company information, please get in touch!