Christchurch Council warns businesses about bogus business rates company

Christchurch Council has issued a warning to businesses that it does not employ third party companies to issue business rate refunds.

This follows a phone call to a Christchurch motor mechanic from a company claiming to work on behalf of Christchurch Council and asking for the company’s bank account details in order to pay in the refund.

However, the bogus callers had not counted on the business owner having a daughter who worked in the Revenues Department at the Council! When he said he would check with his daughter, the phone was immediately put down.

Paul Bliss, Revenues Manager at Christchurch Council, said: “If a business is entitled to a rebate on its business rates then we would pay that directly to the business ourselves. We would never employ third parties to do this work for us and business owners should make sure they never give out their bank details to anyone phoning up to ask for them.”

This warning follows another issued by Christchurch Council last November after residents had phoned the Council about calls they had received from a company claiming they were working for the Council to offer Council Tax refunds.

Calls were also made to residents in other parts of Dorset from a bogus company claiming to work on behalf of other Dorset Councils.