by
Barbara Kram, Editor | December 14, 2005
An additional option is to take the cashiers check to the bank and send it for collection. The bank will charge a minimal fee and notify you when the actual funds have cleared and are deposited into your account. Since this will likely be before 15 days, you can go ahead and ship the equipment safely once you get clearance. In this case the bank has actually gotten the money transferred into their account and they are telling you its here.
What about international transactions? Abagnale suggests using the same safeguards and asking for an international money order drawn on a big-name U.S. bank with branches overseas. That way, you'll have the ability to get the check processed faster than from a smaller foreign bank.
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"Wire transfers can also go wrong so keep alert there, too. What happens in those cases is you've received the money and so you think everything's okay. But there is a period of time that the bank can come back and say it was a fraudulent wire and then hold you liable," he cautions. So in those cases you need to ask your bank: What is their hold time? Because after that time has passed, [the bank] is liable and can't come back and say its a bad wire. That time frame is usually only a few days.
Same goes for an escrow account: Wait a period of time to make sure the funds are there and weren't fraudulently transferred or immediately removed after being put there.
Abagnale continues to be disappointed at the poor security protections in today's checks. You look at some of these cashiers checks and a five-year-old could print them at home." He urges business people, "You can't rely on the police, you can't rely on the government and you can't rely on your bank. You have to be a smarter business person and be a little wiser because its amazing the fraud that's going on and the simplicity of the crime now. I always tell people that I did these things 40 years ago when I was a teenager but now they are a thousand times easier to do today than when I did it."
For more information about securing your financial documents and processes, go to
www.abagnale.com.
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