A major independent auditor is to set
up a user group among in-house and other independent providers of
auditing services to share best practice on how to prevent and
tackle fraud among dealerships.
Richard Jewitt, head of the vehicle audit
division of Orpington-based OCS Inventory and Audit Services, works
with 22 major funders, visiting dealerships to ‘police’ their
practices on the funders’ behalf, and is setting up the user group
as part of a bid to help protect clients from being “taken for a
ride”.
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Jewitt said: “It will be about getting people
together, to look at the software we provide to see whether there
are any recommendations or enhancements they would want.
“It will also be to talk about benchmarking so
that we can all be singing off the same hymn sheet.”
For example, Jewitt said, some audit teams may
make only “sample” checks on dealerships – a practice he believes
to be insufficient.
“It could be very invasive to do a full check
but there’s really no excuse for not doing a 100% audit,” he
said.
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By GlobalDataAccording to Jewitt, it is relatively easy for
a dealership owner to abscond with hundreds of millions of pounds’
worth of stock owing to its mobility and high value, meaning
opportunities for fraud are rife.
Jewitt added: “We check the cars that are
funded are actually on the forecourts of the dealers.”
It is necessary, furthermore, to make sure
auditors communicate with one another and even occasionally carry
out audits together.
“It is a matter of trying to get to know when
other people are going into dealerships common to everyone so we
can go in together,” Jewitt said.
OCS has developed its own software, which can
be used on laptop computers, which can then send information from
an audit direct to the company’s server so that its clients will
eventually have access to it online.
Jewitt said: “The information generated is
reconfigured into a number of reports which funders can access via
our website.
“They can get into the report as soon as the
audit is finished.”
