The Association for Financial Professionals released its annual survey of treasury practitioners, revealing some startling statistics about just how vulnerable businesses are to fraud attacks and attempts. 

In this episode, Thea Dudley, owner of Pocket Protectors, speaks with W&C Group Publisher Jill Bloom about the survey’s findings and what roofing contractors can do to protect themselves from fraud and other schemes.

For instance, according to the survey, 80 percent of organizations were the victims of payment fraud in 2023, a 15 percentage point increase from 2022. The most vulnerable payment method for fraud is checks, with 65 percent of respondents reporting they experienced fraud of this type. 

For the first time in the history of the survey, ACH credits surpassed wires as the most vulnerable payment type for BEC, or business email compromise fraud.

“That's a lot of that hacking—that going into your system and being able to maybe divert the funds by sending a phishing or a smishing email,” she said. “Before you know it, you've changed your bank account and all your money's going somewhere else.”

There is some good news in the report. Of those who were victims, 30 percent said they were unsuccessful in recovering the stolen funds but 41 percent said they did recover at least three-quarters of the lost funds.

Dudley breaks down what contractors can to do shore up their financial security and help prevent fraud in their business, from implementing cyber security training to using payment portals.