Midwest banks lose money in wire fraud

Automated Clearing House (ACH) payments have become very popular among the nation's businesses, as they provide a more efficient means of making amends on a regular basis. This includes payroll transactions, regular payments to vendors and more, though there have been widespread issues with ACH card-based fraud, as security has yet to be perfected. LoanSafe reports that an Overland Park, Kansas, man was prosecuted for wire fraud that cost banks upward of $5 million. The man - Ronald Catrell - pleaded guilty this week, according to a statement from U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom, as reported by the source. Catrell had used several different methods to accomplish the wire and bank fraud, stealing more than $1 million from a bank in Kansas, $750,000 from a bank in Missouri and the remainder from other banks between the two states. He is expected to get a sentence of at least 10 years at the sentencing in September. This case illustrates the need for several lines of security against fraud. In this instance, businesses were not harmed, but in many others the company ends up footing the bill of the stolen money. Not only could this had been prevented with the use of security software, all of the banks that fell victim to Catrell did not have adequate ID verification in place.