The Lemon Fool

I’ve often been critical of Companies House for the incredibly lax security they apply to people wanting to register companies. Although there are supposedly changes in progress it remains absurdly easy for fraudsters to use fake identities – there are no identity checks whatsoever – in order to set up companies for the purpose of defrauding people.

It's also frighteningly easy to adopt the identity of a company director. There has recently been a major security breach, whereby a fraudster from Northern Ireland was able to arrange for charges to secure loans that were registered at Companies House to be cancelled, giving the impression that the loans had been repaid.

This is the corporate equivalent of someone gaining access to the Land Registry and removing any evidence that their house is mortgaged.

It’s not entirely clear what his motive was, but this article suggests some possibilities - https://taxpolicy.org.uk/2024/03/04/security_fraud/

And this is an example of the stupidity of a system that allows registration of a company director to take place without any question – https://find-and-update.company-informa ... pointments

The Ltd company that I'm involved with and owns the freehold to a property used to make each purchaser into the freehold a director.

I first bought into it in 2011 and since about 2014 have had the secretarial function responsibilities (CoHo submissions etc) but I was also the only one with bank account access since another director left in c2016,

I updated the shareholder register as part of the annual confirmation statement and resigned directors as they sold. Everything was working fine.

As part of KYC last year, Barclays decided to kick up a stink that the directors/shareholders per CoHo didn't match up with their own details which progressed for a while with us going round in circles; occasionally them saying that it was fine before another letter arrived saying it wasn't.

I eventually emailed all the other directors saying you can either:
(i) go into Barclays and pass their KYC checks [and if you really want / don't trust me you can provide more info to them and get bank account access]; or
(ii) confirm you wish to resign as a director and I'll resign you at CoHo and that will remove the discrepancy that Barclays are kicking off about

Unsurprisingly, they all opted for (ii) and now with just 1 director at CoHO and the same director only on the mandate Barclays are now happy.

I did that all online but I guess if you insisted on doing it by paper you could resign directors and cause headaches for companies if you were particularly vindictive.

https://youtu.be/iJkB02V4jGY?si=hHpeYQ-DfuzZEmGa

A former policeman exposes ‘government fraud’ at Companies House. He first mentions them at 8.55 minutes in. It might interest a few people. The link may not work but, if not, the video is still listed on Richard Vobes channel.

Clitheroekid wrote:I’ve often been critical of Companies House for the incredibly lax security they apply to people wanting to register companies. Although there are supposedly changes in progress it remains absurdly easy for fraudsters to use fake identities – there are no identity checks whatsoever – in order to set up companies for the purpose of defrauding people.

I got a letter from them recently saying it was supposed to be happening from 4 March, which seemed very soon given the very fundamental change they are supposed to go through.

Highlights of my dealings with CH include them losing a bunch of documents that were hand delivered to their reception, and rejecting a set of accounts for not including a disclosure that was, in fact, right there where it should be. And then issuing a fine because they were late. Now if you were to find recent versions of the accounts on line you will find my handwritten scrawl on the front cover (which they don't like) pointing out the page that the disclosure is on, so they have no excuse. Still, the guards are lovely and there's a nice pub nearby.

DM