Recruitment companies should alert clients to the risks of being scammed by fraudulent agencies.

The warning comes from Paul Ransley, financial controller of TSL Education, whose clients have been persistently targeted over the past two years by staffing companies forced into liquidation on the grounds of public interest.

On Friday Leamington Spa-based Rightstepinternetrecruitment was forced into liquidation having been found to have raised £13,760 through illegitimate activities, with regulator the Insolvency Service finding no evidence the company had ever conducted any legitimate business.

Since July this year, 11 other recruitment agencies have been put into liquidation on the grounds of public interest.

Ransley tells Recruiter that the illicit companies contact TSL’s clients pretending to be TSL itself and send an order form through asking for extra payment, with the scam hard to spot as “the order form being faxed out to our companies is nearly identical to ours”.

Ransley says such scammers have been persistent: “We get to a stage when the company gets closed down and then new ones open up – there clearly is some kind of connection between them all as the scam is nearly identical. We have followed the legal process but it doesn’t seem to be ending there because they are just setting up new websites, so the best thing for us is just making our customers aware.”

Ransley adds: “Certainly recruiters do need to be aware of this story so that they can warn their clients.”