10 Simple Steps to Greatly Reduce Your Risk of Fraud

• New technologies are making it easier to commit fraud. Online banking, electronic fund transfers, remote deposit capture, enhanced scanning and printing are making it easier for anyone, from the lone criminal to the international crime ring, to commit fraud.
• And the impacts can be devastating. Each week I receive desperate emails from people whose businesses were destroyed by fraud.
• The good news is that checks, because of the physical record, can be one of the safest forms of payment if you take the right precautions.

• Banks design their terms to protect themselves from liability- not you. By law, banks are allowed to limit their liability in cases of fraud and many do. Business accounts in particular, have very few required protections. Read your bank deposit agreement thoroughly to understand your risk.
• Banks are not good at preventing fraud. In a recent study, banks failed to discover fraudulent activities until after funds were transferred, in more than 75% of reported cases.⁵
• Banks will fight to limit their liability. In cases with actual loss, banks fully covered the loss only 10% of the time. In the remaining 90%, the bank refused to cover some or all of the loss.6 I know from my experience as an expert witness that banks go to court to avoid losses.
  • Law enforcement often can’t help. Due to cutbacks, white collar crime losses must be high for your case to be considered – and recovery, even with conviction, is unlikely.

• Anyone with a commercial printer can create a check. You need to choose someone who thoroughly understands the risks.Intuit is the only check printer that I know of that focuses on protecting small businesses from fraud losses.
• Everything from the check paper Intuit uses, to the check design, to the people handling your private information, to the order packaging and shipping, has been designed with your safety in mind.

• Criminals continue to get smarter. Choose a check that is designed to protect against rising security threats.
• Use a check that informs payees how to check for signs of tampering in order to protect yourself from Holder in Due Course lawsuits.

• Keep good records of where your money is going – printing checks from Quickbooks is a great start.
• Separate accounting duties such as printing, signing, and reconciling your checks, and use separate passwords to improve tracking.
• Send your bank statements to your home, review within 30 days of receipt, and report anything suspicious to your bank immediately.
• Store your checks, reorder forms, and stamps in a secure location.
• Use 12 point or larger fonts when printing and avoid multiple colors and sizes of checks for the same account.

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