Payroll check fraud increases as economy worsens

On January 23rd a brazen thief was photographed leaving a Charlotte County, Florida, Wal-Mart after cashing a bogus payroll check. Here's the story from local radio station WINKnews.com:

CHARLOTTE COUNTY, Fla. - Charlotte County Sheriff's detectives are asking the public's help in identifying a suspect in a Wal-Mart surveillance photo in Murdock who cashed a $1,475 payroll check that turned out to be fraudulent. The incident happened Dec. 31, 2008 and the case remains unsolved.

Detectives said the suspect provided a payroll check made payable to a Timothy Lamar Trayhan of Palmetto, Florida, and he used a Charlotte, North Carolina, driver's license with photo to cash the check.

Detectives learned that the Wal-Mart on Cortez Rd. in Bradenton had also cashed six payroll checks from five different companies drawn on three different banks, and payable to six different people. All of the checks had the same routing and account numbers.

Those companies lost thousands of dollars, and may face even more losses if the criminals move to another town and cash more bad checks.

A quick way to cut payroll fraud risk is to implement a paycard program. Directo paycards make it easy to eliminate paper payroll checks, reducing fraud while streamlining payroll delivery.

Read more about payroll check fraud in an article Directo President and CEO Bob Howe wrote in Construction Magazine.