Thea Dudley, CEO of Pocket Protectors, speaks with W&C Group Publisher Jill Bloom regarding the bummer issues of fraud and slow money. Dudley, no stranger to W&C’s readers and known throughout the industry as “The Credit Overlord” discusses two distinct issues that challenge those in the industry now: fraud and slow money. So, in the realm of credit, these two issues are a massive concern among contractors, builders, subcontractors, dealers/distributors and more.

How to Address Fraud and Slow Money

Thea Dudley chats with Jill Bloom about payment portals, fraud targets, best practices in debt collection and other methods to address fraud and tardy customers.

The two issues shaping the landscape now, as Dudley mentions, are fraud and slow money with fraud being outlined first.

Fraud has been a challenge for a while now but Credit Safe (a credit reporting company) just put out a report that states that 41 percent of businesses across the country have been “hit” at least seven times by some type of fraud issue. The biggies are:

• Check theft: Check washing, trying to intercept a check;
• Emails: Monies directed towards bank accounts, someone sending you an email that looks legitimate, and probably the worst is;
• Fake Vendors and Invoices: In 2023, it was the worst type of fraud happening and continues on this year.

The best way to counteract these things is online payment portals. If you have not bit the bullet and gotten an online payment portal (eliminate the post office as much as you can), even lock boxes, which used to be everyone’s go-to, for the check to get to the lock box is still has to go through the post office. So the best way for you to do this is find a way to do it online, Dudley says. There are so many options.

For the other two issues (emails and fake vendors) targeted companies really need to slow down and really look at your emails. One of the clues that you can find is always in the “from” senders—look who it’s coming from. There’s always going to be some inconsistencies, and typos in the message usually can be a clue. Really pay attention to those invoices and if something sounds off, take extra note and carefully read the message. Take an extra minute, proof the email carefully, make a phone call—these things will help your sense if it seems not right.

“In the past, it was easy to spot these emails but the language and grammar was so bad. But now, they’re getting slick,” Dudley says.

The second thing we’re going to talk about is slow money. Payments have continued to slow. It’s been a problem this whole year and it’s now really culminating.

Does it happen more in an election year?

“I think it’s a perfect storm. I think the election is a good excuse because some of the push-back from customers is ‘well it’s an election year, this can happen’ but I respond saying ‘Well, this happens every four years’. My mortgage company didn’t tell me to stop making payments so I think it’s the perfect storm—all that PPP money is long gone; you’ve got less projects, you have housing that’s still lagging a little bit, interest rates are still high, and everyone is a little nervous not knowing what is going to happen (with the election) so they’re hanging on to their money; less projects means more competition, and everyone’s fighting for those jobs which drives prices down.”     

So, less money to pay bills, materials haven’t gone down, so slow money is still the topic just everywhere across the country. Everyone’s feeling it.

For more information, visit pocketprotectorsllc.com.