Business Wire Fraud and BEC Lawyer for DC, Maryland, and Virginia
BUSINESS PAYMENT FRAUD · DC · MARYLAND · VIRGINIA
Your bank will say the loss is yours.
The Uniform Commercial Code may say otherwise.
A vendor's email arrives with new bank details. Someone hijacks an employee's login, and wires start leaving the operating account overnight. A forged check clears against payroll. Then the bank tells you the loss is yours because the payment came through your credentials.
START HERE
Hit by wire fraud? Act fast.
1. Report the fraud to your bank as soon as you notice it. Call its wire or fraud department and ask it to send a recall request to the receiving bank. Get a reference number and the name of the person you spoke with.
2. File a complaint with the FBI at ic3.gov. Include the amount, the date, and the receiving bank and account number.
3. Put every pending vendor payment on hold. Confirm any changed payment instructions by phone, using a number you already had, not one from the email.
4. Preserve the evidence: the fraudulent emails with full headers, invoices, payment instructions, and your online banking logs. Ask your IT provider to copy the compromised mailbox before wiping it.
5. Notify your cyber insurance carrier if you have one. Policies often require prompt notice.
6. Send your bank a written objection. The deadlines under the UCC and your account agreement are already running.
DIFFERENT RULES FOR BUSINESSES
Different protections apply to business accounts.
Business accounts do not get the same protections the Electronic Fund Transfer Act gives consumers. Instead, Article 4A of the Uniform Commercial Code governs wire transfers and ACH credits, and Articles 3 and 4 govern checks. Those rules put real obligations on banks, and they can move the loss back to the bank. They also come with deadlines and contract terms that can cut off your claim if you wait.
I help businesses find out quickly whether the bank bears the loss, and how to recover it.
WHO BEARS THE LOSS
What the UCC requires of your bank
When someone sends a wire or ACH payment from your business account without your authority, the bank generally must refund it. The main exception: the bank can hold you to the payment if you and the bank agreed on a security procedure, the procedure was commercially reasonable, and the bank followed it in good faith.
Refund
The starting rule when a wire or ACH payment leaves your account without your authority.
Commercially reasonable
The standard the bank's security procedure must meet before it can put an unauthorized payment on you.
1 year
The outside limit to object after the bank notifies you of a transfer. Your account agreement may set shorter notice deadlines.
Banks often argue that a password and a text code met that standard. Whether it did depends on your business, the size and pattern of your payments, and what the bank knew. A large wire to a new overseas account, sent in the middle of the night by a user who has never sent a wire, is exactly the kind of order a reasonable security procedure should catch.
Even when the security procedure holds up, you may still recover if you can show the fraudster did not get access through your employees, your systems, or anyone you trusted with the security procedure. But you can lose the right to object entirely by waiting. The UCC bars a customer who does not object within one year after the bank notifies it of the transfer. Many account agreements also set shorter notice deadlines, so report the fraud in writing right away.
HARDER CASES
When the facts are less clear
What if an employee sent the wire?
Business email compromise schemes usually end with your own employee sending the payment to an account the fraudster controls. Under Article 4A, that payment is usually authorized, which changes the analysis. Recovery then depends on other facts:
· Did the receiving bank know the account name did not match the payee?
· How did it respond to red flags?
· How fast did the recall go out?
· Will insurance or the vendor share the loss?
These cases are harder. They are worth a careful look before anyone writes the money off.
Forged and altered checks
A bank may charge your account only for checks that are properly payable. A check with a forged signature or an altered payee or amount usually is not.
But you must review your statements and report problems promptly, and the UCC sets an outside deadline of one year from when the bank made the statement available.
If your account shows a check you did not write, act now.
WHY WORK WITH THE CONSUMER LAW LAB
Fourteen years in payments law.
I spent 14 years at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where I served as Market Lead for Payments and as Senior Counsel for Enforcement Policy and Strategy. I understand how payment systems work, where fraud controls tend to fail, and what the law expects of banks. I represent businesses and individuals in Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia.
Talk to me before the deadlines run.
Have the transfer date, the amount, the receiving bank, and any correspondence from your bank ready. Business matters are handled on a fee basis, and I will explain the cost before you hire me.
Lost money from a personal account? See Bank Fraud Help