Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise lobby group caught up in fraud case after $7000 payment

A major economic lobby group owned by the Toowoomba Regional Council has found itself involved in a fraud matter, after it unwittingly sent a payment to the wrong set of bank details.

TSBE CEO Ali Davenport.

The Toowoomba region’s major economic lobby group has found itself involved in a police matter, after it unknowingly sent a fraudulent payment to the employee of a supplier.

Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise, which is a wholly-owned entity of the Toowoomba Regional Council, alerted to authorities about a payment totalling nearly $7000, which had been sent to a supplier as part of an invoice.

The payments reportedly went into an employee’s bank account, rather than the company’s coffers.

According to an interim report by the Queensland Audit Office, which was discussed at the council’s committee meetings on Wednesday, the issue was discovered when the supplier sent an overdue payment notice to TSBE.

“During our planning visit in March 2021, we were advised fraudulent payments had been made to a supplier amounting to $6993,” the report said.

“An employee from the supplier submitted a bank account detail change to TSBE back in 2019, updating the bank account details to her own.

“Payments had been made to this supplier post 2019 by TSBE though the employee was deleting the records from the supplier’s accounts.

“The supplier contacted TSBE over late payment in January 2021 where the fraud was detected.”

The QAO report said TSBE was co-operating with the Queensland Police Service on the matter.

“TSBE are not liable to pay the invoices again as the supplier is covered by their insurance policy.

“A significant deficiency was raised in TSBE in 2020 as to the importance of third party confirmation for all vendor masterfile changes.”

It’s understood the employee has been charged over the matter.

TSBE CEO Ali Davenport said she had noticed employee fraud had been on the rise.

“A legitimate invoice from a supplier was presented to TSBE for payment,” she said.

“We paid the invoice, which had a fraudulent bank account of an employee who worked for the local business instead of the business bank account, so the money went to the employee.

“The local business in question had already uncovered many instances of fraud by this employee, and the police had already charged the person.

“We assisted the police with their inquiries.

“Apparently, this type of fraud is on the rise and can be difficult to detect.”