COMMERCIAL PRINTERPeter Wise, director, Minuteman Press
"Printers lacking robust payment processes are an easy target for fraudsters online and offline. Minuteman Press is not complacent, we have learned the hard way. We now require full contact details from prospective clients, run credit checks routinely, verify identities and ask for deposits from new clients. If a client is reserved in providing information, we don’t trade with them. Our online presence minutemanbristol.com is also targeted on occasions with scams involving large print orders with a payment to a courier, but generally these are easy to spot. I do think the industry attracts a significant share
of fraudsters, but not as many as other sectors."
CREDIT CHECKERIan Carrotte, managing director, ICSM
"The print industry, through extended credit terms, and, in many cases, lax verification of potential clients, is more at risk of becoming an unwitting investor in somebody else’s business – party to all of the losses, but none of the profits – than most industries. After seeing the story on David Gale last week, many readers will no doubt have assured themselves that it wouldn’t happen to them. The majority of his victims would have said exactly the same before their experience – but he knew the industry well, and it has been suggested that he might have worked previously as a delivery driver for a paper merchant."
TRADE FINISHERAndy Bird, managing director, Folio
"Personally, I think print is an easy target right now, or at least has been for the past few years. When there is overcapacity and presses are idle there is always going to be someone that will take a punt just to fill space. Everyone, every now and then, makes a decision on what their kit is doing, coupled with gut feeling. There will have been a lot of opportunities in recent times to catch people out like that. Hopefully those opportunities are now few and far between – a lot of companies are better run. I know we carry out a lot more credit checks than we did two years ago. When margins are so small you have to run a tighter ship; you can’t afford to take a hit."
TRADE BODYAndy Brown, corporate affairs director, BPIF
"I don’t know if it is necessarily to do with print as an industry. It is more to do with small businesses that are particularly stretched and under pressure to make money, with limited management resources, which could affect any industry – the public sector would be as much at risk as the private sector. We are in an over-capacity industry so when a new customer presents itself it is an exciting part of any company’s life, but of course this is where the danger comes in. I think credit checking is probably as important as ever and this case is a sobering lesson to us all. I would advise every printer to proceed with caution at all times."
