an hour! The machines could do it quicker, but the checks would catch on fire.
Thus, if the check is under a designated amount, no human eye looks at the signature. If I scribble an "X" or write "Elvis Presley" on a one- thousand-dollar check, or don't sign it at all, the check is still going to clear the bank as long as the funds are in the account. "Dateline," during its report on check fraud, had no difficulty cashing small checks signed by "Porky Pig," "Bugs Bunny," "Attila the Hun," and "Bill Clinton."
On those checks, you can't fault bank employees for missing suspicious signatures. But you can on higher amounts. At many institutions, there are rules for when someone from the site review area must verify signatures. At most community banks today, it's $5,000. At most mid-sized banks, it's $10,000. At the nation's top fifty banks, it's $15,000 to $25,000 before any human being in site review looks at that check. But here we run into another problem: there's not much emphasis on training anymore. Years ago, for instance, every city used to have a chapter of the American Institute of Banking, which was the educational arm of the American Bankers Association. When banks started to merge and began to create multiple branches, however, bank managers said, "I don't want to send my teller out to some training program that I'm not controlling, so I'll train my own tellers." A lot of banks teach the teller how to handle all the money in the window, but don't tell them anything about how you recognize a counterfeit bill or how you recognize a fraudulent check. And smaller banks simply don't have the resources to train their personnel. New hires get trained by whoever is standing at the next window. What that person doesn't know, new tellers will never know.
DON'T GET YOUR WIRES CROSSED
When someone wants to forge a company's check, one of the most promising ways that he gathers the pertinent information is by calling his victim and asking for it. When the company switchboard answers, he asks for the accounts receivable department. He tells them that he's getting ready to wire the company some funds, and asks for the wiring instructions. He could call up any company in the world, and as soon as he says that he's going to wire them some money, the company will tell him where it banks, on what street, in what city, what the account number is, and what the transit number is. What more could you ask for? What the forger is essentially asking is, how do I write drafts on your bank account? And you're the one telling him. Ten years ago, you had to corner someone in the parking lot and bribe him to write down that information on a piece of paper. Now you can get it for free with a simple telephone call.
WHAT TO DO
Obviously, any company getting wires every day has to give out the information over the phone, in order to allow people to electronically transfer money to its accounts. But there's a way to prevent this kind of fraud. All you have to do is open up what's known as a non-negotiable incoming wire account to receive your wire transfers. So when people call up and ask for that information, that's the account you give them. Funds that come into that account by wire can't be withdrawn, can't be taken out verbally, and can't be taken out electronically. The only thing you can do is put money into the account. Those funds are held there until the end of the bank day, at which point they're moved to the account that you write checks on.
THE BUCK STOPS WITH YOU - SO YOU'D
BETTER GET THE CHECK RIGHT
In the old days, the bank was entirely liable if it paid a forged check. At that point, companies would say, well, I don't care about my checks. If somebody forges a check, I'll catch it in my audit, take it down to the bank, and they'll give me my money back. And if they don't, I'll find another bank to do business with.
Because of changes in the law, it doesn't work that way anymore. If the bank can prove that you were negligent in any way, then they don't owe you the money. Say you work in accounts payable and asked a clerk to cut you a check for $63,000 to pay an invoice. The clerk cut the check and