Overheard a guy at the coffee shop describe a wire fraud close call

Was waiting for my order in Chicago last Tuesday and heard this older guy on the phone telling someone about a $14,000 transfer that almost went out to a fake vendor. He said the only thing that stopped it was that the invoice had a different bank routing number than the last three payments. Made me think about how we all check the payee name but rarely double-check the account details on repeat vendors. I went back to my desk and audited our last 20 vendor payments, and two of them had changed banking info that I had not verified with a phone call. That was too close for me. How often do you actually call a vendor to confirm a bank change, or do you just trust the email? I am setting a rule that any change over $5,000 gets a voice confirmation from now on.

2 comments

2 Comments

emmafisher1mo agoMost Upvoted

Honestly, most people never call, and that's the scary part.

jason_robinson29d ago

And the few who do call, they usually wait until it's way too late. People treat a phone call like it's this huge deal, but a text takes twice as long to explain the same thing. The silence is the real problem. You can't tell what someone's actually thinking when they just read your message and never reply.