Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 4:09 pm Post subject: Beware of Checking Account Compromises
Today was awful.
Was having a great day until...
My bookkeeper approached me and asked me about some ACH charges on my business account last month. We pulled up the online statement for this month and looked at last months as well. Someone had made EFT withdrawals to Citibank, WAMU and some other little known bank.
It was not a small amount in total.
I immediately closed my account and have spent the entire day working on this. The bank has already refunded the money to my new account (KUDOS to Chase).
Someone was able to get my routing number and checking account # (which are printed on all my checks).
The little branch told me that they are seeing this 1-2 /month now that the economy is bad.
This is what they have recommended:
1. Make sure you balance your account MONTHLY with bank statement. You only have 60 days to dispute.
2. Have two accounts. One main account ( with most of your money) and one to write checks with. Keep as little as possible in the check writing account. Just transfer money in when you need it.
3. Try to pay most of your bills with online checking center. The checks they send out DON'T have your personal information.
Just thought I would share so hopefully this doesn't happen to you.
Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 4781 Location: Alpharetta, GA
Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 7:20 pm Post subject:
MXRider wrote:
toronexti wrote:
wait shouldn't the banks be able to tell who deposited the $$ and be able to arrest the people for check fraud or whatnot?
This seems to be very easily traceable IMO. I can't imagine them not being able to do just that.
Depends on how long it takes to discover. It wouldn't be difficult to get the cash for the fraudulent transfers pretty quickly, and then disappear (presuming that the accounts transferred to are all set up in as bogus/disposable a fashion as possible).
So we caught it quickly.
The others were 9/03, 09/10 and 9/30.
I reported it to my bank and they called the other banks involved.
Two of the withdrawals were pay- by- phone from Citibank.
I was refunded the money in less than 6 hours.
So someone called Citibank and gave my account info to pay a Citibank Account. Citibank doesn't match the names on the two accounts. They just withdraw the funds when given numbers.
Citibank won't give the name on the account it went into.
My bank says I will never know who did it. I did give them the name of my ex-office manager.
I will be logging on and checking my accounts daily.
This scared the crap out of me.
Joined: 10 Sep 2004 Posts: 4781 Location: Alpharetta, GA
Posted: Wed Oct 08, 2008 7:49 pm Post subject:
It probably isn't worth your time if your bank is making you whole (and I assume they'll then handle getting their money back aggressively), and IANAL, but if someone was stupid enough to pay off a credit card with a direct transfer it seems to me it should be pretty easy to get them charged criminally.
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