We’re all aware of the increasingly bold moves fraudsters take to steal personal identities to secure jobs, cars, homes and more—but what about business-to-business fraud? As a small business owner, how much thought do you give to fraud protection for your business?

You have a lot to fear and even more to lose if you become a victim of commercial fraud. Approximately 30 percent of all business credit losses are attributed to some type of misleading or fraudulent information. Ultimately, financial damages from these and other business scams far overshadow losses from consumer fraud. View Experian’s white paper on Identifying Small Business Fraud to get more information about types of common fraud.

On average, losses are 3 to 10 times higher than personal identity theft damages. So, it’s time you become aware of business credit fraud. To learn more about protecting your business, and what to do if it falls victim to fraud, click here.

Small business owners appear to be lucrative targets for identity fraud perpetrators, alarming banking institutions, payment processors, and B2B service providers.  According to Javelin’s 2011 Small Business Owners (SMBO) Identity Fraud report, the cost of fraud and identity theft “hit SMBO constituents particularly hard. Javelin research uncovered what was previously an undocumented cost to the industry of $5 billion as a direct result of this fraud. In addition, financial institutions (FIs) lost over $590 million in clients and revenue opportunities over a five‐year period.”

Additionally, the report indicated that small business owners’ mean fraud amount is about 5% higher than that for all consumers ($4,851 vs. $4,607).  Even more alarming was the fact that the SMBO’s mean victim cost is 150% higher than consumer costs ($1,574 vs. $631).

So what does all of this mean?  If you’re a small business lender or service provider, having a robust multi-layered SMBO fraud prevention program in place is essential for client retention and avoiding reputational risk.   You CAN take control of the situation with more proactive fraud prevention strategies which will improve your relationships with SMBO customers and save them (and you) money in the long run.