Zone 2 · The verdict
Name the fraudster, name the missing check
Get both right and you go into the draw for one of two pairs of Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses. It takes under a minute. Three fields, one tiebreaker, no attachment to upload.
Haven't played yet?
The whole case is on this page. Four statements, five exhibits, two emails, about ten minutes. Nothing to download.
Took the printed file home?
Go straight to the form. You do not need to re-read anything. The worksheet questions are the same three above.
Prize
Win a pair of Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses. Drawn one week after the show, winners contacted by email.
Case file · No. 07
The Vanishing Supplier Payment
Everything you need is on this page. Four people had access, motive, or opportunity. One of them is lying, and the documents will tell you which.
The case
Central Perk Industrial Ltd (Reading, UK) has sold packaging materials to Green Manufacturing Ltd (Rotterdam, NL) for six years. Ross Geller, Central Perk's owner, has one main contact on the other side: Rachel Green, who manages the vendor master file at Green.
On the morning of 14 August, Rachel receives an email from "Ross Geller" asking her to update Central Perk's bank details before the next invoice is paid. The email looks right. The signature looks right. She makes the change.
On 23 August Ross Geller phones Green to ask why he hasn't been paid. He has been paid — to an account nobody at Central Perk recognises. €48,200 is gone.
How to play · ten minutes
- 01Read the four statements. One person is lying.
- 02Check the exhibits against what people say.
- 03Check one page on hicx.com. It names the missing check.
- 04Submit your verdict on this page, or hand your worksheet to a HICX detective at Booth 16. Either way counts as one entry.
Some details are red herrings. Look for what can be checked against evidence, not just what sounds suspicious.
Witness statements
Four interviews, taken 23–24 August.
Ross Geller
Owner, Central Perk Industrial · Reading, UK · taken 23 Aug
You asked Green to change your bank details on 14 August?
No. I never sent that email. I've used the same account for six years. I didn't know anything had changed until I called about the payment myself.
Who else has access to your company email or letterhead?
My inbox, just me. But I sent a sample invoice to a new business contact about three weeks before this, so my letterhead and signature block were out there.
Who was that contact?
A freelance IT consultant, said his name was Chandler. Wanted a sample invoice to see our formatting before quoting us. Never heard from him again.
Rachel Green
Accounts Payable Clerk, Green Manufacturing · Rotterdam, NL · taken 23 Aug
Walk us through 14 August.
I got an email that looked exactly like Ross's usual invoices. It asked me to update the bank details before the next payment. Company name and VAT checked out, so I made the update. I didn't call Ross to confirm — we don't usually call for this, it slows everything down.
Did anything seem unusual?
Looking back, it arrived a day earlier than usual and the subject line was slightly different. I didn't notice at the time.
Chandler Bing
Freelance IT Contractor, engaged by Green in July · taken 24 Aug
You worked on Green's vendor spreadsheet in July?
Two-week contract cleaning up their supplier list. I had access to bank details, contacts, invoice formats — standard for that kind of job.
Where were you on the morning of 14 August?
Working from home, like most days. Nobody can confirm that but me.
Monica Geller
Junior Sales Rep, Central Perk Industrial (started July) · taken 24 Aug
How long have you worked with Ross?
Since mid-July. He's teaching me invoicing. I asked for his signature block as a file on 5 August, for a quote template.
Do you know anything about the missing payment?
Only what Ross told me. I hope you find whoever did this.
Exhibits A and B: two invoices
The same goods, the same total, nine days apart. Compare the sender domain and the payment footer, letter by letter.
Detective's note. One character has been swapped — a lowercase L for the letter I in "industrial". It survives a glance. That's the point.
Exhibit C: who owns the account
On file since 2021
- Legal entity
- Central Perk Industrial Ltd
- Company no.
- 07741220
- Incorporated
- 14 Mar 2011
- Registered office
- Unit 4, Bennet Road, Reading RG2
- Directors
- R. Geller, M. Geller
- VAT
- GB 745 2201 88
- Account holder
- CENTRAL PERK INDUSTRIAL LTD
Account requested 14 August
- Legal entity
- C.P.I. Trading Ltd
- Company no.
- 16402188
- Incorporated
- 22 Jul 2026
- Registered office
- 3rd Fl, 14 Cross St, Reading RG1 — serviced office, 40+ companies
- Directors
- C. Bing (sole)
- VAT
- none registered
- Account holder
- C.P.I. TRADING LTD
- Activity
- 1 credit in, €48,200, 14 Aug. 3 debits out, 15 Aug.
Detective's note. The VAT number and company name on the request were genuine. The account belonged to a different, 23-day-old company. A name/tax check passes this. Only one kind of check fails it.
The email room
Read the headers, not just the words.
Thread 1 · 22 July
- FROM
- Chandler Bing <chandler.consulting@fastmail-uk.com>
- TO
- Ross Geller
- SUBJECT
- Modernising supplier onboarding — quick question
Ross — hope you don't mind the cold approach. I'm doing a piece of work on supplier onboarding for a manufacturer in your sector, and I'm putting together a comparison of how suppliers actually invoice today.
Would you send me a recent invoice as a PDF? Nothing sensitive — I only need to see your formatting, where the totals and the signature sit.
ROSS GELLER → CHANDLER BING · 11:47 · ATTACHED: CPI-4402.pdf
Chandler — no problem at all, one attached. Ours is fairly standard: logo top-left, signature block bottom-right, payment details in the footer.
Thread 2 · the fraudulent email · 14 August
- FROM
- Ross Geller <ross.geller@central-perk-lndustrial.co.uk>
- REPLY-TO
- accounts.centralperk@fastmail-uk.com
- TO
- Rachel Green
- SUBJECT
- Central Perk Industrial — updated remittance details
Rachel, before the next invoice is paid — we've moved banks. Our old NatWest account is being closed at the end of the month, and anything landing there after Friday will bounce back to you.
New details below. Same company, same VAT number, nothing else changes.
Account name: Central Perk Industrial · IBAN: GB94 BARC 2038 9977 4410 62 · VAT: GB 745 2201 88
Sorry for the short notice — I've only just had confirmation from the bank myself.
- 1The account name says "Central Perk Industrial". Exhibit C says who holds the account.
- 2A reply would not have gone to Ross.
- 3Compare this sender to Exhibit A. Letter by letter.
Exhibit D: 34 degrees
He says he was at home. A till in Reading disagrees.
Amber warning — extreme heat
Reading, UK · Friday 14 August
Maximum 34°C at 15:00 — the warmest day of the year so far. Advice: stay out of the sun between 11:00 and 15:00.
What to check on the receipt
Mr Bing says he was working from home, and that "nobody can confirm that but me." Look at the time on the till receipt, the card used, and what was bought alongside the coffee. Then check it against when the email was sent.
Case closed
You shouldn't have had to read all that.
Four suspects, five exhibits, and in the end one field on one supplier record that nobody was required to check. Every clue you followed was a governance failure in disguise, and every one of them is a control you can put in place.
01
A domain nobody compared.
One lowercase L, registered 23 days before the payment behind a privacy service. A domain age check flags it in seconds.
02
A bank account nobody confirmed the owner of.
Name matched, VAT matched, and the account holder was a different company. Only an ownership check fails this.
03
A phone call nobody was required to make.
Not detective work, admin. And admin is exactly where the money goes when it is left to human judgment.
The cost of leaving it
This case is fiction. The exposure behind it is not.
7.7%
of annual revenue lost to fraud, self-reported across 1,200 business leaders
153%
forecast rise in fraud losses by 2030, from $23bn to $58.3bn
30–45
days of email chasing per supplier, even at low onboarding volume
80%
of supplier data problems found after the record already exists
~50%
of supplier master records are out of date at any one time
Sources: TransUnion H2 2025 · Juniper Research · industry estimates · HICX buyer research. From the HICX Supplier Registration Report 2026, Are you inviting trouble?
The other way to run it
One front door. One golden record.
Every change arrives through a single front door, onto one record, checked against the outside world. A shell company never becomes the real supplier, because the account holder is verified against the legal entity on file. Four parts of the HICX Supplier Management Platform do that work, and you do not have to deploy all four to start.
HICX Origin
The external intelligence layer. Connects supplier records to 40+ trusted data sources covering bank account validation, sanctions screening, tax ID verification and ESG enrichment. Validates at entry and monitors continuously.
Confirmation of Payee matches a name to an account. It does not prove the account belongs to your supplier. This is the check the case turns on.
Explore HICX Origin ↗Supplier Data Foundation (MDM)
A single, governed master record for every supplier, unified across global and local ERPs, procurement suites and every connected system. Continuously validated.
Three records for one supplier is how a fourth one goes unnoticed. One record, one owner, one audit trail.
Explore Supplier Data Foundation ↗Supplier Registration
A governed entry point for supplier data. Identity, tax, address and bank details are captured and validated before a supplier reaches anything downstream, then re-validated at every change.
A bounded fix. No ERP integration, no MDM build, no full onboarding programme required to start.
Explore Supplier Registration ↗Supplier Risk Management
Assess, monitor and act on supplier risk continuously, with structured programmes, automated scoring and corrective action workflows rather than a point-in-time questionnaire.
Most records are verified once, at creation. Everything after that is the open stretch this case lives in.
Explore Supplier Risk Management ↗What people ask before they start
"Do we have to replace our ERP?"
No. HICX sits above your transactional systems. Your ERPs, procurement suites and risk tools stay where they are, and take governed supplier data from one place instead of each holding their own version.
"Is this a multi-year master data programme?"
It does not have to be. Supplier Registration governs the point of entry on its own, without an MDM build or a full onboarding implementation. Most deployments start with one bounded problem and expand from there.
"We already have Confirmation of Payee."
Confirmation of Payee and Verification of Payee match a payee name to an account at the payment rail. Neither proves the account belongs to your supplier. That is the gap this case walks through.
"Who has to change how they work?"
Suppliers use one portal instead of several routes in. AP and master data teams stop chasing confirmations by email. The controls run in the background, not as another queue for someone to clear.
"Fraud happens at the edges because you've overlooked the mundane."
The case you just solved is one HICX customers never open.
HICX helps Global 5000 companies organize and manage their supplier data, so a bank detail change is a controlled event with a check behind it.
The draw
A pair of Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses
Every correct verdict goes into the draw. Two winners are picked at random one week after the show and contacted directly by email. Here is exactly what you are agreeing to.
01
One registration, one entry
Print or web. Submitting the worksheet at the booth and the form here still counts as one entry, so play whichever way suits you.
02
Drawn one week after the show
Five names, drawn at random from all correct verdicts. You do not need to be at the show to win.
03
Winners contacted by email
We use the address on your entry. No public announcement, nothing for you to chase.
04
The tiebreaker decides
If we need to separate entries, the sentence about 22 July is what we read. One line is enough.
Open to attendees and web players aged 18 and over. HICX employees and immediate family are excluded. No cash alternative. Entries close at the end of the show. Your details are used for the draw and for HICX to contact you about supplier management. You can unsubscribe in one click, and we do not pass your details to anyone else. Full terms available from a HICX detective at Booth 16.
DPW Amsterdam 2026
Talk to a HICX detective at Booth 16
Two minutes, your process, no slides and no pitch. Tell us how a bank detail change reaches your vendor master today, and we will tell you where the gap is before you leave the stand.
Bring us one of these
- 01Your bank detail change process, as it actually runs today.
- 02How long a new supplier waits between request and usable record.
- 03How many places a supplier can enter your business unvalidated.
- 04Your completed worksheet, if you played the printed version.
Can't make the booth?
Book twenty minutes with the team instead. Same conversation, a screen between us, and a working answer on your own process.
Book a demoThe full report
Are you inviting trouble? Five reasons enterprises are fixing supplier data at the front door, with the evidence behind every number on this page.
Read the report ↗Case closed · 03.09
The solution
Who sent the email
Chandler Bing
He obtained the invoice template on 22 July, registered the lookalike domain the same day, incorporated C.P.I. Trading Ltd as sole director, and opened the receiving account two days later. His alibi fails on the Reading till receipt.
The missing check
Ownership
Bank account validation that verifies not just that the account is real, but who owns it: the legal entity on file. Name and VAT both matched. Ownership was the only check that fails this request.
