Small Business Shared Interest Group

The Small Business SIG is preparing for an upcoming webinar on bank and payment fraud affecting small and mid-sized businesses, and we would love to hear from this community.

Not the theory. The real stories.

Have you ever experienced (or narrowly avoided) something like:

• A stolen or altered check
• A vendor payment that was redirected
• A phishing email that almost fooled someone
• An account takeover or suspicious banking activity

Often there's a moment when someone realizes:

"Something about this doesn't feel right." 🚩

What was the first red flag?

If you're comfortable sharing, drop a short story in the comments or message me privately. I may incorporate anonymized examples into the webinar discussion.

The best fraud prevention lessons usually come from real experiences, not just policies.

🔐 Let's help each other stay one step ahead.

We had a mailed vendor check stolen a few years ago that was then fraudulently deposited. The depositing bank (a really big one), while acknowledging their error in accepting the check, made it a very long and very difficult process to have our funds returned. We have since set up a few more checking protections with our own bank so something like this is much less likely to happen again. It was a very frustrating experience for both us and our vendor.

The Small Business SIG is preparing for an upcoming webinar on bank and payment fraud affecting small and mid-sized businesses, and we would love to hear from this community.

Not the theory. The real stories.

Have you ever experienced (or narrowly avoided) something like:

• A stolen or altered check
• A vendor payment that was redirected
• A phishing email that almost fooled someone
• An account takeover or suspicious banking activity

Often there's a moment when someone realizes:

"Something about this doesn't feel right." 🚩

What was the first red flag?

If you're comfortable sharing, drop a short story in the comments or message me privately. I may incorporate anonymized examples into the webinar discussion.

The best fraud prevention lessons usually come from real experiences, not just policies.

🔐 Let's help each other stay one step ahead.

The Small Business SIG is preparing for an upcoming webinar on bank and payment fraud affecting small and mid-sized businesses, and we would love to hear from this community.

Not the theory. The real stories.

Have you ever experienced (or narrowly avoided) something like:

• A stolen or altered check
• A vendor payment that was redirected
• A phishing email that almost fooled someone
• An account takeover or suspicious banking activity

Often there's a moment when someone realizes:

"Something about this doesn't feel right." 🚩

What was the first red flag?

If you're comfortable sharing, drop a short story in the comments or message me privately. I may incorporate anonymized examples into the webinar discussion.

The best fraud prevention lessons usually come from real experiences, not just policies.

🔐 Let's help each other stay one step ahead.

I've seen several different bank frauds attempts during my career.

Early in my career you would still receive the physical cancelled checks each month.  My bank rec was off.  So, I was going check-by-check looking at the amounts.  Came across a check that had been altered.  The individual had used Whiteout fluid!  How a teller or the bank EVER allowed that check to be cashed I'll never know.

Also, had several checks that were passed out in AZ at convenience stores and such.  Positive Pay flagged them.  The checks looked exactly like our issued checks and had the signatures of authorized check signers.

The most interesting was an attempted wire fraud.  We had two entities that were based out of the same office (main corporate and smaller regional sales entity).  During a close week I received an email from the controller for the smaller company asking me to pay an invoice via wire transfer.  As I was busy, I just left the email unread to action later.  The following day I had a follow-up email.  Previously, the controller worked for me and new our processes.  So, I found it strange that he'd be asking me to pay an invoice for a vendor that wasn't in the system and didn't have a purchase order.  Also, the invoice was from a company in China which the sales entity would have absolutely no reason to be dealing with.  I located the individual and asked him about the email and he knew nothing about it.  We went to his desk and he showed me that he had not sent any emails.  As we were standing there a window for a new email opened on his screen and typing appeared and was then sent to me.  We alerted our IT team ASAP.  After investigating it was found that his PC had been compromised.  Possible while he was working at an internet café.  The individual had setup rules in Outlook that deleted any trace of the emails being sent and received.

The Small Business SIG is preparing for an upcoming webinar on bank and payment fraud affecting small and mid-sized businesses, and we would love to hear from this community.

Not the theory. The real stories.

Have you ever experienced (or narrowly avoided) something like:

• A stolen or altered check
• A vendor payment that was redirected
• A phishing email that almost fooled someone
• An account takeover or suspicious banking activity

Often there's a moment when someone realizes:

"Something about this doesn't feel right." 🚩

What was the first red flag?

If you're comfortable sharing, drop a short story in the comments or message me privately. I may incorporate anonymized examples into the webinar discussion.

The best fraud prevention lessons usually come from real experiences, not just policies.

🔐 Let's help each other stay one step ahead.

The Small Business SIG is preparing for an upcoming webinar on bank and payment fraud affecting small and mid-sized businesses, and we would love to hear from this community.

Not the theory. The real stories.

Have you ever experienced (or narrowly avoided) something like:

• A stolen or altered check
• A vendor payment that was redirected
• A phishing email that almost fooled someone
• An account takeover or suspicious banking activity

Often there's a moment when someone realizes:

"Something about this doesn't feel right." 🚩

What was the first red flag?

If you're comfortable sharing, drop a short story in the comments or message me privately. I may incorporate anonymized examples into the webinar discussion.

The best fraud prevention lessons usually come from real experiences, not just policies.

🔐 Let's help each other stay one step ahead.

Both of these incidents happened within the last 2 years.

I had a customer who sent me a check for payment through the mail. I was reconciling their bank accounts and noticed that the check written out to me had been cashed. Well, I knew I hadn't received it or cashed it. Going onto the bank website, I pulled the image of the actual check. My business name had been erased and replaced with a different name then cashed.

About a month later, another client of mine had an employee calling and asking where their paycheck was. Almost exact same thing had happened. The check had been mailed. The mail had been intercepted. The check recipient was altered but the amount and the check number remained so it had been marked as reconciled because it had cleared the bank.

The Small Business SIG is preparing for an upcoming webinar on bank and payment fraud affecting small and mid-sized businesses, and we would love to hear from this community.

Not the theory. The real stories.

Have you ever experienced (or narrowly avoided) something like:

• A stolen or altered check
• A vendor payment that was redirected
• A phishing email that almost fooled someone
• An account takeover or suspicious banking activity

Often there's a moment when someone realizes:

"Something about this doesn't feel right." 🚩

What was the first red flag?

If you're comfortable sharing, drop a short story in the comments or message me privately. I may incorporate anonymized examples into the webinar discussion.

The best fraud prevention lessons usually come from real experiences, not just policies.

🔐 Let's help each other stay one step ahead.

The Small Business SIG is preparing for an upcoming webinar on bank and payment fraud affecting small and mid-sized businesses, and we would love to hear from this community.

Not the theory. The real stories.

Have you ever experienced (or narrowly avoided) something like:

• A stolen or altered check
• A vendor payment that was redirected
• A phishing email that almost fooled someone
• An account takeover or suspicious banking activity

Often there's a moment when someone realizes:

"Something about this doesn't feel right." 🚩

What was the first red flag?

If you're comfortable sharing, drop a short story in the comments or message me privately. I may incorporate anonymized examples into the webinar discussion.

The best fraud prevention lessons usually come from real experiences, not just policies.

🔐 Let's help each other stay one step ahead.

I've read up a lot on check-washing for my CFE credential.  The crime is an old one, but it's expanded recently due to availability of digital tools.  It used to be the thief had to erase the ink on a check using chemicals to alter it (I've heard nail polish remover was a popular choice!).  Now all they have to do is scan the intercepted check and digitally change the payee or dollar amount.  It used to be the theft was limited to the single intercepted check, but they can now digitally duplicate it as many times as they want as well.  And with the advancements in convenient, image-based depositing through banking apps, they don't even have to walk into a bank to make the deposit and risk being caught on camera.

The other one to watch out for is refund scams.  Someone impersonating your customer will wire more than the amount the customer owes you, claim it was a mistake, and request you refund the difference.  If you process the refund, they deposit it and disappear long before you realize their initial payment doesn't clear the bank.  This happened to the manufacturing company my husband works for, they lost around $20,000.  The police did not think it was worth pursuing even though they had the criminals on camera making the deposit at a local bank.

The Small Business SIG is preparing for an upcoming webinar on bank and payment fraud affecting small and mid-sized businesses, and we would love to hear from this community.

Not the theory. The real stories.

Have you ever experienced (or narrowly avoided) something like:

• A stolen or altered check
• A vendor payment that was redirected
• A phishing email that almost fooled someone
• An account takeover or suspicious banking activity

Often there's a moment when someone realizes:

"Something about this doesn't feel right." 🚩

What was the first red flag?

If you're comfortable sharing, drop a short story in the comments or message me privately. I may incorporate anonymized examples into the webinar discussion.

The best fraud prevention lessons usually come from real experiences, not just policies.

🔐 Let's help each other stay one step ahead.

Great great engagement and traction on this post you Guys n Gals!

Looking to a fantastic event!

One of our former clients, a multi‑location auto dealership group was hit with a wave of extremely sophisticated cashier's‑check scams. Fraudsters FedExed formal, professional‑looking cashier's checks for vehicle purchases, complete with negotiations, paperwork, and out‑of‑state buyers. The checks looked perfect and required signatures upon delivery. The bank did not even blink, holograms and all. The criminals were counting on the dealership releasing vehicles before the checks cleared (up to 7 days for that amount level). The client held the vehicles, and as such, intercepted most of them, but one vehicle and keys were released before the fraud was detected. That case turned into a criminal investigation. It was a wakeup and jolt that even 'guaranteed funds' like cashier's checks are not necessarily so.

I worked at a large practice where we received a $25K retainer check from our new vetted client.
The check cleared, but the client requested a refund of $10K due to a "billing overpayment error."
While we were preparing the $10K transaction back to the client, the original check sender was discovered as a highjacked party, they did have calls with us, but never actually sent anything to us, it was a legitimate account, but the check was not. The entire thing was unwound as counterfeit.

Also, real but hijacked invoices with compromised/altered QR codes that lead you to fake but very real looking website to enter your info.

I myself have received messages from my "CEO" at a large practice asking for wires to be set up for special projects, for a hush hush CAPEX, special secret party for sales dept. and so on . . . 

Fun times!

ilya i.

The Small Business SIG is preparing for an upcoming webinar on bank and payment fraud affecting small and mid-sized businesses, and we would love to hear from this community.

Not the theory. The real stories.

Have you ever experienced (or narrowly avoided) something like:

• A stolen or altered check
• A vendor payment that was redirected
• A phishing email that almost fooled someone
• An account takeover or suspicious banking activity

Often there's a moment when someone realizes:

"Something about this doesn't feel right." 🚩

What was the first red flag?

If you're comfortable sharing, drop a short story in the comments or message me privately. I may incorporate anonymized examples into the webinar discussion.

The best fraud prevention lessons usually come from real experiences, not just policies.

🔐 Let's help each other stay one step ahead.

The Small Business SIG is preparing for an upcoming webinar on bank and payment fraud affecting small and mid-sized businesses, and we would love to hear from this community.

Not the theory. The real stories.

Have you ever experienced (or narrowly avoided) something like:

• A stolen or altered check
• A vendor payment that was redirected
• A phishing email that almost fooled someone
• An account takeover or suspicious banking activity

Often there's a moment when someone realizes:

"Something about this doesn't feel right." 🚩

What was the first red flag?

If you're comfortable sharing, drop a short story in the comments or message me privately. I may incorporate anonymized examples into the webinar discussion.

The best fraud prevention lessons usually come from real experiences, not just policies.

🔐 Let's help each other stay one step ahead.

Jennifer,

Those are very frightening stories!  I have had some experience with uncovering small bank fraud issues.  The most recent one was a Paypal charge on the bank account that showed one of the partner's names.  None of the other partners knew about the charge, so one of them agreed to ask the partner about the charge but did not follow up.  A few days later a larger Paypal charge showed up on the account. I notified my client again, but nothing was done to investigate it.  A few days later an even larger Paypal charge was pending withdrawal, so I contacted my client insisting that the bank be contacted about potential fraud.  Once it was investigated, it was determined that a fraudster set up a Paypal account using my clients bank routing number and account number, so the bank froze the account and set up a new account, and the bank returned the withdrawals to my client.  It has been time consuming to deal with the transition, and the delayed response almost cost my client the entire amount due withdrawn, because banks expect to be notified immediately when fraud occurs.

The Small Business SIG is preparing for an upcoming webinar on bank and payment fraud affecting small and mid-sized businesses, and we would love to hear from this community.

Not the theory. The real stories.

Have you ever experienced (or narrowly avoided) something like:

• A stolen or altered check
• A vendor payment that was redirected
• A phishing email that almost fooled someone
• An account takeover or suspicious banking activity

Often there's a moment when someone realizes:

"Something about this doesn't feel right." 🚩

What was the first red flag?

If you're comfortable sharing, drop a short story in the comments or message me privately. I may incorporate anonymized examples into the webinar discussion.

The best fraud prevention lessons usually come from real experiences, not just policies.

🔐 Let's help each other stay one step ahead.