How HireHub Adds an Extra Layer of Security Against MEWP Hire Fraud
By Amy Harrison, Strategic Business Support Manager
Two simple habits help cut the risk of access platform hire fraud and theft: limiting who can order equipment on your account, and making sure kit is collected as soon as you've finished with it. HireHub, our free customer portal helps you do both. Here's why each one matters and how it works.
Why does it matter who can order on your hire account?
Fraudsters hire kit by pretending to be someone who works for a real company. On most occasions, this fraud is conducted by phone or email. The more people who can place orders on your account, the more names there are to borrow, and the harder it is for anyone to notice an order that doesn't look genuine.
Our advice is to keep platform hire ordering to a select list of people within your organisation. Not only does this approach support sound purchase order management, it also means only approved people can action orders. Meaning it is more likely for fraudulent orders to be noticed by your hire company. But there are still gaps. Criminals can still impersonate employees via phone and email. Read our article about spotting plant hire fraud to learn more.
So, the solution is to ringfence ordering with an online system like HireHub with approved logins for a select group of people at your business. Criminals would therefore need hacking skills to fraudulently hire equipment. Although it’s not impossible for fraudsters to have hacking skills, it’s a specific skillset that’s not readily available. Making life hard for criminals goes a long way to stopping crime.
How HireHub lets you control who can order access platforms
You choose who can order. Decide exactly which people in your business can raise or accept quotes and place orders. Restricting who can order MEWPs means an extra layer of security.
Different roles, different rights. Give different levels of seniority different permissions. For example, a buyer or contracts manager places orders, a site manager checks what's on hire on their site, and your accounts team sees invoices.
See every contract in one place. No matter how a MEWP was hired (phone, email etc) HireHub shows every contract on your account. So, if a machine appears that nobody on your approved purchaser list booked, you can spot it quickly.
Why does MEWPs left on site increase the risk of theft?
Once a job's finished, a MEWP often sits unused while it waits to be off-hired or collected. Nobody's using it, nobody's checking it, and it may be standing there over nights and weekends. The longer it stands around, the more chance a thief has to spot it. See when MEWPs are most likely to go missing.
Being able to off hire open contracts through HireHub day or night means the collection-clock starts ticking immediately after you’ve finished using the machine. It’s then up to the hire company to collect the platform as quickly as possible. With Horizon, we have a 98% on-time collection rate. So, our speedy hire service coupled with HireHub off hiring reduces the risk of platform theft.
How HireHub's what's on hire report keep you on top of machines
HireHub's reports show you, at a glance:
What's on hire, and on which site
What needs off hiring, so nothing is left on hire longer than it needs to be
What's waiting to be collected, so you know exactly what's still on site
You can off hire day or night, and the reports let you hold us to account. If we haven't collected a machine when we should have, you'll be the first to know, and you can chase us. Collecting on time means kit isn't stood around on site for longer than necessary, which keeps the risk of theft down.
Can HireHub stop fraud on its own?
in short, no. HireHub works in tandem with our verification checks and your approach to preventing fraud. See 8 ways you can protect your company from hire fraud in addition to using HireHub.
Take control of your hires
Sign up to HireHub or book a demo and see how you can take control and help prevent criminals impersonating your company.
