Protect Your Business from Fake Postings
Impersonating the Dead
Sadly tens of thousands of identity thefts involved the identity of a dead person. This disgusting crime involves fraudsters using the person’s details to apply for credit before the relevant companies/authorities find out that the person has died.
This type of crime mainly affects individual families, but if the person who dies is a director of your business (or a key customer or supplier) then it leaves you open to theft through their identity.
If a director of your business dies, then you need to make sure that the Inland Revenue (Now HM Customs and Revenue) and other relevant authorities are informed quickly; you should also register their address with the Mailing Preference Service to prevent direct mail being sent, credit applications are often used by fraudsters as part of their identity theft.
Fake Postings
It can be difficult to prevent people who are pretending to be from your business making malicious comments. In the event that a false or libellous claim is posted on a website; you need to take quick action to prevent it spreading: Note: To be considered malicious in most cases the comment must claim to be from your business when it is not, it would also need to make a clearly false (I.e.: You can prove otherwise) statement that could be shown to cause damage to your business (e.g. “Our products are unsafe” or “we deliberately overcharge customers”). In the event of such a comment: Email the person who has made the comments and give then a short period of time (e.g. 24 hours) to remove the comments before you take further action. If they refuse to take the comments down or do not respond then contact the website that is storing the comment; or if the website is owned by the person making the comments, contact their web host warning them that this person is making false and/ or libellous claims through their services.
Most reputable web hosting companies should either remove the comments or ask for more details as to why they need to be removed. If they refuse to remove the comments you may have to threaten costly legal action (if it is justified) to get any further. If the comment becomes public or gets publicity: Create a press release that clearly denies the comment, and (if possible) proves that it is incorrect; and warn newspapers or magazines that may report it that the comment is libellous and most definitely false.
If the comment h as come from inside your business, you should find the person responsible and treat the matter as gross misconduct.
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