As I sit here and ponder AP, it becomes readily apparent just how much AP has changed in the last two to five years. We have problems today that simply did not exist a few years ago. ACH fraud, vendors demanding you accept invoices electronically or by fax, and really aggressive state auditors looking for unclaimed property and unpaid sales and use tax.

It made me wonder. What other headaches are our readers facing? From many of these problems emerge new best practices. What problems do you have today that you did not have two to five years ago? Please send your comments to publisher@ap-now.com with the words “AP Scoundrels” in the subject line. We’ll try to find solutions to as many of these problems as we can.

Given my accounts payable focus, I’ve been doing a lot of research on the growing incidence of ACH payment fraud  – so imagine my surprise when I received an email offering me a position as a “payment agent” for one of the Fortune 100 companies. Of course, I recognized it as a fraud but to be honest, if I wasn’t so closely attuned to this type of thing, I might for a moment have been taken in.

How This Fraud Works

The email in question purported to be from a Fortune 100 company, whose name you would recognize. It stated that the company in question was “recruiting a payment officer / book keeper. Your duties as the Payment Officer / Book Keeper is to collect payments from our numerous customers within your region, process the payments, deduct 10% of the amount issued to you as your personal bonus and you transfer the rest of the funds to our main account officer whose information will be provided to you in due time”

What This Really Is

In actuality, the payment agent will receive funds stolen through illegal ACH transactions. When the thefts are identified and the authorities come looking, it will be the recipient of the funds - the so called payment agent - who will be responsible for returning all the funds. This includes the 90% that was wired to the hiring company. Of course, at this point, the hiring company will have disappeared into the winds.

Don’t fall for it and be aware that this is going on. This is part of the larger fraud issue I have been investigating for both upcoming articles in The Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow newsletter, The CFO & Controllers’ Accounts Payble Management Journal and an upcoming ACH Fraud webinar and CD. 

Sample issues of either publication may be requested by sending an email to publisher@ap-now.com

(c) 2009 Mary Schaeffer & CRYSTALLUS, Inc.  

Fraud always increases when times are bad - and recent times have been nothing to brag about.

Most experts believe fraud is skyrocketing and we are attempting to collect the proof - one way or another. While annecdotal evidence suggests it is growing, we will wait until we have the numbers in hand to prove it one way or another.

That’s where you can help us - and we’ll share an Executive summary of the results to thank you. Please take our Fraud survey at http://www.surveyconsole.com/console/TakeSurvey?id=591459.

By the way, if you are concerned about one of the fastest growing types of fraud, you might be interested in our October 14 webinar, ACH Fraud Prevention: It’s Everyone’s Problem CDs are available after the session.

(c) 2009 Accounts Payable Now & Tomorrow