Phantom invoice
A phantom invoice is a bill, or something that is supposed to look like one, that intentionally deceives the recipient. The purpose is to receive money for products or services that have no value, or are never delivered.
Sending ghost invoices is a form of acquisition fraud. Whereas acquisition fraud involves deception to get the victim to enter into an agreement, ghost invoice scams consist only of sending an invoice.
Senders often impersonate a trusted organization, such as the Chamber of Commerce or Telephone Directory, or make the formatting of the note look so much like these types of organizations that many recipients are not suspicious.
As with acquisition fraud, phantom invoices are usually not strictly speaking invoices, but offers where a giro slip is enclosed "for convenience. In this way, it can be said in retrospect that the customer has accepted the non-binding proposal by means of his payment, and thus there was no question of an invoice for something that was not requested.
