It's All in Timing . . .

We had some people from Loss Prevention at headquarters come to our branch today to meet with several of us at a time to present and review various types of frauds and counterfeit instruments that come into the credit union. Sometimes the member presenting them has the intention to steal, and sometimes they have no idea that what they have is counterfeit or is part of a scheme to defraud. Our head teller and I were the first to meet with the group from headquarters. After we were done, I returned to my teller station. The first transaction I had was closely familiar to some of the scenarios that had been presented. It was an "official" check from an institution in the Southwest being presented to an account that had very little activity in a long time. A red flag went up in my brain and I went to the supervisor to show her. She advised to put a 5 business day hold on the check and to inform the member. While he was still in front of me, my supervisor sent me a message to call the financial institution. I did a search on the internet to get a valid telephone number and we called. It was a counterfeit check! I quickly became the hero! A short while later, our branch manager came out to stick a gold star and an "A+" on my shirtsleeve. You can't write this stuff!