Supplier Fraud & Verification
Case studies, risk patterns, and practical guides for Australian accountants and procurement teams.
How to Verify a Supplier ABN on Your Phone — Gumshoe Mobile Guide
A step-by-step guide to running a full supplier verification on Gumshoe from any mobile device. Covers the verify flow, reading results on a small screen, and the fastest path from ABN to confident decision.
31,000+ Australian Companies Are Currently in External Administration. Does Your Supplier List Overlap?
ASIC insolvency data reveals the scale of companies currently in external administration across Australia. What it means for accounts payable teams and how to cross-check your supplier portfolio.
The 10 Things We Check Before Anyone Calls It Due Diligence
A framework for what comprehensive corporate intelligence looks like — and why most due diligence processes leave most of it out.
Your Accounts Payable Team's Biggest Risk Isn't Fraud — It's Complacency
In postcode 2000 alone, 7,559 ABNs were cancelled in the past 12 months. Suppliers you verified two years ago may no longer exist. The complacency problem in Australian accounts payable.
What the Insolvency Gazette Tells You That ASIC Doesn't (Yet)
ASIC's bulk data can lag gazette notices by weeks. A liquidator files Tuesday; it may not appear in ASIC's bulk extract until next month. Here's what the gazette catches first — and why it matters for payment decisions.
The 5-Year Survival Rate of Australian Businesses: What the Numbers Actually Say
We analysed the full 2019 ABN registration cohort — 900,000+ businesses — and tracked their survival to 2024. Only 31% of sole traders made it. Here is what the data reveals about supplier risk.
Release Notes — June 2026: Capital Intelligence, Reports Suite & Platform Improvements
June 2026 brings the full launch of Gumshoe Capital Intelligence, a new Intelligence Reports suite, front-page banner system, nav and layout standardisation, and a scheduled blog pipeline running through November 2026.
Introducing Gumshoe Capital Intelligence: Public-Record Research for Serious Investors
Gumshoe Capital Intelligence is a forensic public-record research suite built for Australian investors, due-diligence teams, and legal and accounting practices who need facts — not opinions — about the companies they are evaluating.
The Viper Pattern: Identifying Activist Short-Seller Campaigns Targeting ASX Companies
The ASX has been targeted by multiple high-profile activist short-seller campaigns over the past decade. Understanding how these campaigns work — and how to distinguish legitimate research from market manipulation — is essential for listed companies, institutional investors, and retail traders.
Intelligence vs Investment Advice: Why the Distinction Matters
Gumshoe Capital Intelligence is an intelligence company, not an investment adviser. Here is why that distinction matters legally, epistemically, and for you.
We Analysed 16 Million Australian Business Records. Here Is What We Found.
Most businesses check an ABN and call it done. We built a machine that cross-references 20 government registers simultaneously — and the data tells a different story about supplier risk in Australia.
Andrew Left Convicted: How Citron Research Ran the Viper Pattern for 20 Years
In 2024, Andrew Left — founder of Citron Research — became the first prominent short-seller convicted of securities fraud for a "tweet-and-trade" scheme. His conviction exposed the mechanics of the Viper Pattern: take a position, publish a report, profit from the price move, then quietly exit.
Make Your Next Audit Boring
The best compliment an audit can pay your supplier process is silence. That silence is bought in advance — at onboarding — not reconstructed under pressure at year-end.
Gumshoe is Live — Australian Supplier Verification, Properly Done
Today we launch Gumshoe — the first supplier verification platform built specifically for Australian businesses. Here is what we built, why we built it, and what happens next.
Your Gumshoe Dashboard — Everything You Can See and Do
Once you have verified a few suppliers, the dashboard becomes your command centre. Here is a plain-English walkthrough of every section, what the numbers mean, and what actions you can take.
Platform Update — Director Checks, Street View Fix & Intelligence Upgrades
Street View Pro now shows the photo it was always supposed to. Directors are now cross-checked against ASIC's banned list. Social media discovery is smarter about sole traders. Plus a full capability audit of every check we run.
Release Notes — June 2026
Street View fixed, smarter social media discovery, homepage cross-checks, and the support queue going live. Everything shipped in June 2026, in one place.
What Gumshoe Actually Checks: Inside the Data Behind the Verdict
A supplier check is only as good as the data behind it. Gumshoe draws on dozens of independent public sources — government registers, domain infrastructure, physical signals, and online presence — then cross-checks each against the others. Here is how that works, and why it matters.
How Gumshoe Remembers Your Supplier Details
Gumshoe saves the details you enter for each supplier — website, phone, address, email — so you never have to type them again when you revisit the same ABN.
How We Verify Bank Accounts Without Storing Bank Accounts
Payment fraud costs Australian businesses hundreds of millions every year. The solution is obvious — a searchable database of who owns which account. The problem is equally obvious: that database would itself be a fraud target. Here is how we solved it.
Active ABN Is the Floor, Not the Ceiling
An active ABN feels like a green light. It isn't. It's a turnstile — easy to pass, and not proof of much. Here's what actually separates a real supplier from a convincing front.
The Phoenix Pattern: How Fraudsters Walk Away From Their Debts — and How to Catch Them
Billions of dollars leave Australian creditors empty-handed each year when operators run up debts, deregister, and reappear under a fresh ABN. This is phoenix fraud — and it leaves forensic fingerprints that Gumshoe now reads automatically.
Toxic Combinations: What Banks Know That Businesses Don't
Banks spend millions building systems to ensure the person who can move money can't also approve it. Here's why the same logic — applied to the people running companies you do business with — is the due diligence most businesses have never thought to run.
The Three-Second Check That Prevents a Five-Figure Mistake
Most invoice fraud isn't a heist. It's a typo you were meant to trust. Three habits defuse most of it — and the third one is the whole game.
How a National Retailer Caught a Ghost Supplier Scheme
A major Australian specialty retailer discovered a network of fictitious suppliers after running Gumshoe verification on their accounts payable backlog. Here is what the checks found — and what human review alone had missed for three years.
The Hidden Cost of Supplier Fraud in Australia
Australian businesses lose an estimated $3.1 billion annually to payment fraud. Most of it starts with a supplier that was never properly verified. Here is what the numbers actually look like — and where the exposure sits.
Beyond the ABN: Why a Valid ABN Is Not Enough
A valid, active ABN is the minimum threshold for supplier legitimacy — not the maximum. Here is why accountants who stop at the ABN check are leaving serious risk on the table.
8 Red Flags Your Accounts Payable Team Is Missing Every Day
Most AP fraud succeeds not because it is clever, but because it exploits gaps in manual verification processes that nobody has had time to fix. These eight signals are the ones most commonly overlooked.
How Business Email Compromise Works — And How to Stop It
Business email compromise is the most financially damaging form of cybercrime targeting Australian businesses. Understanding exactly how it works is the first step to building effective defences.
The ASIC Deregistration Trap: When Your Supplier Does Not Exist Anymore
ASIC deregisters hundreds of companies every month. An ABN can remain active after a company is deregistered. Paying an invoice from a deregistered company creates legal exposure most businesses do not know about.
Domain Age in Supplier Verification: The 180-Day Rule
Domain age is one of the most powerful and least-used signals in supplier fraud detection. A domain registered in the last six months warrants immediate heightened scrutiny. Here is why — and how to check it.
DMARC, SPF, and Why Your Supplier's Email Domain Matters More Than You Think
Email authentication records are free to check, publicly available, and almost never examined in supplier verification. They are also among the clearest indicators of whether a supplier's domain can be impersonated.
A Risk-Based Supplier Onboarding Framework for Australian Accountants
Not every new supplier presents the same risk. A risk-tiered onboarding framework lets your team apply the right level of scrutiny to each relationship without creating unnecessary friction for legitimate vendors.
From 40 Minutes to 60 Seconds: The ROI of Automated Supplier Verification
The business case for automated supplier verification is not about technology — it is about time. Here is what the numbers look like when you calculate the true cost of manual verification at volume.
Building an Audit Trail: Why Timestamped Supplier Verification Reports Matter
When fraud happens despite your best efforts, what saves your business is evidence that reasonable due diligence was performed. A timestamped verification report is that evidence.
How an Accounting Firm Scaled Supplier Risk Reviews Across 80 Clients
A mid-sized Australian accounting practice was spending 40+ hours per month manually checking suppliers for their advisory clients. Gumshoe reduced that to under 4 hours — while improving the depth of every review.
The $340k Subcontractor Fraud a Small Builder Almost Missed
A family-owned construction business with 12 staff discovered a subcontractor had been invoicing for work that was never performed. A single Gumshoe report during onboarding would have flagged three critical warning signs on day one.
Inside a Property Manager's Maintenance Billing Fraud
A property management group discovered one of their own managers had been routing fake maintenance invoices through family-registered businesses for over two years. The scheme was sophisticated, hidden inside legitimate rent statements, and nearly impossible to detect without automated supplier verification.