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The latest payroll fraud tale comes from New Hampshire, where a woman acquired a Dunkin Donuts paycheck and used it as a template to create her own. She’s headed to jail, as are the man who supplied the check, and another woman who helped cash the checks. Read the whole story here at the UnionLeader’s website.
Protect your company from schemers. Go electronic and quit sending paychecks out into the world. Direct deposit, with a paycard program to help all employees participate, is proven to reduce, and in most cases eliminate, paycheck fraud risk.
Paychecks are riskier than ever. To speed deposit and decrease lobby and drive-through traffic, banks have installed ATMs that accept deposits electronically. Just insert the check and an image of it pops up with a request to verify the amount shown. The money is deposited to the account, and reconciled later. Your stolen paycheck could be run through a stranger’s account, operated by a stolen debit card, and you (and the account owner) wouldn’t find out until days later.
Far more common is for a crook to note your account and bank routing number and order new checks, or to “wash” the stolen paycheck and enter new information on it. Higher dollar amounts, new payee name – both are common ways to loot your company’s bank account.
How to keep from giving strangers your company’s banking information? Direct deposit, of course. And with a solid paycard program to allow unbanked workers to participate, you can cut your fraud risk in a single payroll period. It’s easier than you think to avert a paycheck fraud disaster.
Here’s a link to a story about some home-grown check fraud.
Msnbc.com financial blogger Allison Linn hits a nerve with today’s post about consumer’s love of the convenience of debit cards, but not the fees that banks want to attach to them. After the outcry over rising bank fees that large banks imposed to recover lost interchange income, banks eased off, but are roaring back with different fees, this time hidden as charges for perks such as expedited online bill pay. Be wary. And remember that for many, the answer is a payroll card account such as Directo’s: simple to use, with low, transparent fees.
1. Paycards are an easy way to handle finances, and they’re a benefit that you can offer employees, at no cost to you.
2. No credit check! Directo doesn’t check credit. All can participate in direct deposit.
3. Changing bank rules – A growing number of paycard users are dissatisfied bank customers, looking for the ease and security of a bank account.
4. The U.S. government mandates electronic payments only, and beginning this spring all benefits will be paid electronically.
5. Eliminate rising payroll delivery costs. Whether you use couriers, mail, or gas for your car, costs are headed skyward – end them with a Directo paycard program!
The savings account that an Illinois mom opened with her teenage son worked well, until bank fees piled up on a low balance.
Daniel Ganziano used the account to store pay from his job. When the balance fell to $4.98, he received a letter telling him that a $9.95 low-balance monthly fee had been imposed six days earlier. That fee overdrew the account by $5.10, and daily $28 overdraft fees soon ballooned the amount owed. By the time he got the letter, he owed $229.10.
Daniel’s mother Melinda, who had urged him to open the account, paid the fee and they closed the account. They eventually got the money back, after they complained to a local TV station’s consumer advocate. Lesson learned? Melinda says, “Banks are not the way they used to be.”
At Directo, we clearly communicate our low fees, and our customers find that they save hundreds of dollars yearly that would have gone to check cashers. Plus, they have the security of funds held in an FDIC-member bank.
Does this sound familiar?
It’s payday. Your job crews left your offices at 6:30am, and won’t return until 3:30pm. After you run the checks and get them signed, you distribute the ones in the office, then race to each job site to delivery paychecks. You return to the office just in time to go home. Meanwhile, back at the sites, the workers are chomping at the bit, desperate to leave and get to the check casher. This hectic tale doesn’t even take into account the next day, when you replace one of the checks because your employee lost it on the way home!
The solution? Direct deposit, powered by Directo paycards. With Directo, every employee can participate in direct deposit, eliminating the distribution hassle. In addition, Directo paycards reduce your paycheck fraud risk. It’s simple, costs you nothing, and with Directo’s year-end special, your employees win, too! Email today to find out how Directo can help your company!
