Lookout for Fraudulent International Wires
Since the first of the year, credit unions have seen an increase in fraudulent international wire requests that are part of consumer identity theft scams. Some of these fraudulent transfers were identified and stopped, but most may result in losses to credit union members.
The most common scam involves identity thieves moving money from a member’s home equity line-of-credit to a checking account via the credit union’s online banking application. The scam artists then wire the funds out of the country – making it difficult if not impossible to recover the funds.
This is just one example of the many identity theft schemes targeting consumers. We recommend that you remain vigilant about identifying wire remitters and recognizing potentially fraudulent wires. Require dual approval of all large wire transfer requests – domestic or international – to ensure that these entries are adequately reviewed for potential fraud.
For more information about identity theft and identity fraud prevention, visit the Federal Trade Commission’s ID theft website.
New ACH Form for Unauthorized Entries
The National ACH Association (NACHA) has clarified and simplified the rules on the form used by members to dispute unauthorized or improper ACH entries. The new sample form is much shorter than the Written Statement Under Penalty of Perjury form in use for the past few years, and the language used should be much more understandable to your members.
We have modified the sample form to make it more “credit union friendly”. Feel free to download our sample form, and customized it for use by your members.
You will want to add your credit union name and logo to the sample form, and perhaps add any other unique provisions that might apply to your credit union. For example, if you require notarization of this form, you should incorporate the appropriate language to the sample form.
For more details on the new form and its requirements, please refer to the Revisions section of the new 2010 NACHA Rule Book. If you have any questions on our sample form, contact Ed Beck, Training & Education Specialist at 720-540-4648 or via email at ebeck@suncorp.coop.
SunCapture File Processing Changes
Effective February 15th, SunCorp changed the timeline for processing check collection batches received via the SunCapture branch capture service.
Previously, we received transmissions of SunCapture check batches from credit unions until 8 p.m. Mountain time before forwarding the files for collection processing. Due to earlier deadlines from the Federal Reserve for check processing, we now begin releasing and processing of files as early as 3 p.m. Mountain time. However, credit unions can still submit SunCapture batches as late as 8 p.m. as before.
The only impact of this change to credit unions is the ability to delete a check batch. After 3 p.m., you will not be able to delete the batches that have been released for processing. Any changes to checks already processed would then need to be handled via the normal manual adjustment process.
If you have any questions about these changes in SunCapture processing, please contact our branch capture support staff at 1.877.786.2677 ext 4750.
