Kyle
(photo: Kansas City Business Journal)
Kanas City entrepreneur Barnett Helzberg Jr has gone from the diamond industry where he used his keen eye to spot beautiful diamonds and jewelry, to a new startup spotting phony invoices. This time around he doesn’t need to use his fine eye though.
PhonyInvoices is a startup designed for businesses to stop getting scammed out of paying phony invoices. Small businesses and large businesses alike know to well the invoice scam. Fake phone book companies, service companies and even law firms have been known to target businesses with fake invoices. The perpetrators are hoping that the person in accounts receivable doesn’t spot the fake invoice and sends a check the company’s way.
Helzberg formed the startup in February after decades of spotting fake invoices at his family owned and operated jewelry chain, Helzberg Diamonds.
“It obviously makes me a little angry — as hard as it was to make a profit — with businesses being defrauded every day,” Helzberg told the Kansas City Business Journal. “It only took me about 46 years to realize someone needed to be out there fighting this.”
PhonyInvoices tests a company’s internal controls and runs invoices against a database of known invoice scams. PhonyInvoices has already caught several questionable invoices that some of their member companies paid before joining the service.
More after the break
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