Active customer
The SIREN, SIRET or VAT number is looked up in INSEE's SIRENE register: a company that has ceased trading no longer orders.
Free tool
Check an order
An order arrives in the name of a well-known company, to be delivered and paid later? Before shipping, enter its SIREN, SIRET or VAT number and, if you have them, the delivery address and the buyer's e-mail address.
Why check an order before shipping
A fake customer does not divert a payment: they get goods delivered. They order in the name of a well-known company, often a large account with a reassuring name, ask for 30 or 60 days to pay and have the goods delivered to an address that is not theirs. The invoice then goes to the real company, which ordered nothing.
The clues are in the order itself: a delivery address away from the customer's sites, a buyer writing from a consumer mailbox or a domain registered the week before, a VAT number held under another name. Each one takes seconds to check, before shipping.
What the tool checks
Delivery address
Read by the national address database (BAN), then compared with the customer's active establishments in the same postcode.
Buyer's e-mail
Consumer mailbox, domain registered less than three months ago or unknown to its registry, DMARC protection of the domain.
VAT number
When you enter a VAT number, VIES says whether it is active and under which name: it must be the customer's.
Order watch
Recent creation, cessation, close changes of director or registered office published in the BODACC, insolvency proceedings: the periods when an order on credit deserves a second check.
Asset freezes
The customer is looked up in the French Treasury's national asset freeze register: making funds or economic resources available to it is prohibited.
Frequently asked questions
How do you spot a fake order?
Three signs recur: a delivery address that is not one of the customer's sites, a buyer writing from an address that is not the company's (consumer mailbox, look-alike domain), and payment terms requested on a first purchase. The tool checks the first two; the third is a matter for your terms of sale.
Is an address outside the customer's establishments necessarily fraud?
No. A building site, a logistics provider's warehouse or a subsidiary delivered in the group's name are legitimate. That is why the tool says "to check" and never "fraud": ask the purchasing department, on a number you found yourself, what the address is.
Where does the information come from?
From INSEE's SIRENE register, BODACC notices and the national asset freeze register, of which TierSafe keeps a local copy, from the national address database, public DNS and the registry of the buyer's domain, and from VIES for a VAT number.
What do you keep from my search?
Nothing: neither the number, the delivery address nor the e-mail address. Only an anonymous count of the day's searches is kept, to apply the free limit.
How many checks can I run?
5 checks per day, all free tools combined, without signing up. To be warned as soon as one of your customers ceases trading or changes director, follow them with Sentinelle: your company and ten third parties are monitored for free.
Further reading : Kbis fraud: spotting a hijacked identity among your third parties · Monitoring customers and suppliers: keeping a third-party base up to date · Check a change of bank details
Be warned when a customer changes
Sentinelle monitors your customers every day: cessation, proceedings, change of director, with an order watch opened at the right time. For free and without a subscription, for your company and 10 third parties, with a same-day alert.