Cards And Unsecured Business

Avoid Cheque Fraud

Cheque fraud is among the oldest and most common forms of financial crime. Even with the advent of electronic payment products, cheques still account for billions of payments each year, making them a prime target for criminals.

There are three main types of cheque fraud:

* Counterfeit - cheques not written or authorized by legitimate account holder
* Forged - Stolen cheque not signed by account holder
* Altered - an item that has been properly issued by the account holder but has been intercepted and the payee and/or the amount of the item have been altered

How can you protect yourself from fraud for items drawn on your account?

1. Reduce the use of risk-prone cheques in favour of electronic payments such as wire payments, direct deposit and pre-authorized payments.
2. Choose envelopes that make cheques hard to detect while in transit. This helps to minimize the risk of cheques being intercepted.
3. Keep cheque stock in a secure location.
4. Destroy unused cheques from closed accounts immediately.
5. Checks and Balances - split responsibilities so that no one person is responsible for cheque issuance and reconciliation.
6. Prompt account reconciliation - Reconcile your statements as soon as they are received. To speed things up, many clients see a significant advantage in products like:
* CIBC Business Banking, our Internet banking platform
* Positive Pay, which matches cheques presented against your own cheque issue files and identifies all exceptions for a Pay/No Pay decision
* Corporate Clearing, which helps large volume cheque issuers manage the daily processing and reporting of paid items
7. When re-ordering cheques, use a continuous set of serial numbers.
8. Order only one set of cheques per account.
9. When laser-printing cheques, issue multiple passwords to those responsible for cheque printing and use cheque paper with toner anchorage to permanently bond toner ink into the paper.
10. Use high quality cheques employing a reasonable mix of security features. Davis and Henderson meet all of CIBC's requirements for cheque printers.
11. Report any old outstanding cheques and suspected fraud on your account immediately.