How should organisations validate quote requests to avoid Net RFQ fraud?

How to verify a quote request before you treat it as real

Validation should start outside the email thread. Verify the requester through a second channel, then compare the quote request against the company’s real identity, location, and procurement patterns. If the message only feels urgent but cannot be independently confirmed, it should be treated as suspicious rather than fast-tracked.

Check whether the domain matches the organisation it claims to represent, then validate the company details on its official website and published contact information. A legitimate buyer can usually be reached through a known switchboard or procurement contact, not only through the address in the request.

When the request uses a free mail account, a lookalike domain, a freight forwarder, or a residential delivery address, the validation threshold should be higher. Those features are not proof of fraud on their own, but they are common markers of impersonation and payment diversion attempts.

What commonly signals Net RFQ fraud

Net RFQ fraud works because it is operationally plausible: the attacker wants to look like a normal purchasing customer and push the supplier into shipping before credit checks, callback verification, or internal review happen. The risk is highest when the request tries to bypass normal quotation discipline by creating pressure, secrecy, or a narrow response window.

Look for changes in normal buying behaviour, such as a first-time customer asking for an unusually urgent quote, requesting shipping to a different entity, or avoiding standard business contact paths. Those deviations matter because fraud attempts often depend on separating the quote from the real decision maker.

• Check whether the requested product, quantity, destination, and payment terms are consistent with the supposed buyer’s business.
• Confirm that the contact details in the request match the company’s official domain and published records.
• Question any request that insists on a freight forwarder, alternate delivery location, or rapid dispatch before verification.

What a resilient validation process should look like

A reliable process puts verification before fulfilment. Sales, finance, and operations should share a simple rule: a quote request is not trusted until the requester has been validated through independent evidence and the transaction details make business sense.

That process works best when staff know exactly what to verify, who owns the callback step, and when to escalate a suspicious request for review. The control fails when validation is left to individual judgement, because attackers exploit inconsistency and time pressure.

For organisations that regularly receive RFQs, the most useful improvement is a standard validation script and a short exception path for unusual requests. If the business cannot confirm the customer independently, the request should be paused rather than handled as an ordinary sales enquiry.

Risk and Threat Considerations

Net RFQ fraud creates payment diversion, misdelivery, and reputational risk because it turns a routine commercial process into a trust decision. The common failure is not technical compromise, it is accepting a request as genuine before the organisation has verified who is actually asking for the quote and where the goods are meant to go.

Failure mechanism: The attacker impersonates a buyer, inserts urgency, and uses weak identity checks, such as reply-only email validation or visible sender details, to push the supplier into quoting or shipping on false premises.

Impact: The organisation can lose goods, incur chargebacks or recovery costs, expose internal pricing and logistics details, and damage customer trust if the fraud is repeated or publicly linked to the supplier.

Practitioner Guidance

What to verify: Treat callback verification as mandatory for any new or unusual RFQ. The practical test is whether you can confirm the request through a published company number or official website contact, not through the address in the email thread.

Common mistake: Do not let a professionally written request or a realistic logo substitute for independent validation. Fraudulent RFQs often succeed because the request looks routine enough to skip the callback step.

Practitioner takeaway: The safest operating rule is simple: if the requester cannot be confirmed independently, the quote is not ready to process.

Related resources from NHI Mgmt Group

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