Stay Safe: Tips for Protecting Your Business from Check Fraud | Scammers | B2B Vault: The Payment Technology Podcast | Episode 140

3. Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the payment technology podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy Allen Kopelman, and we'll be providing you educational information about small business fintech, payment processing, and the technology businesses are using in the world today. And in today's podcast, we'll be discussing why your business should be set up with ACH and no longer sending out paper checks, accepting paper checks, etc. Um, there's so much fraud going on when it comes to paper checks, you know, you got to be careful. Uh, don't want to be out there, you know, like it's 1942, writing a check in the grocery, you know, whatever. I don't like— I, as a web developer, I hated waiting for paper checks in the mail. There's so many different services that you could use to get paid instantly, like Nationwide Payment Systems, for instance. You can set up a merchant account and then you can send an invoice, and the next thing you know, you have the money directly in your account. That's not what we're talking about today, but it's just one of the things that I mean when I'm saying businesses should be utilizing technology in, uh, making your business easier.

Works smart, not hard, right? Make it easy for your customers to pay you. And it was interesting because, you know, I got a couple of phone calls this week. Yeah. And it was all about check fraud. So one of them was a guy we've been talking to who we were talking to them about getting set up with a payment link so that their customers which are large commercial customers. So these are checks for $3,000 to $5,000 on the low side, and on the high side they could be $10,000, $15,000 or more. Really? Yeah. And it's a, you know, they do like commercial plumbing jobs for, you know, big companies like, you know, major construction, you know, like, so it's made, you know, people paying them like every week. So the guy was telling me, so they're in a big quandary now. The police are involved, the FBI. What happened? What happened? Their office is in an office building. Somebody, um, through investigation gained access to the mail area because, you know, it's a building, so there's mailboxes. And somebody, somebody, uh, obviously gained access into that area and stole checks out of several businesses' mailboxes.

It's terrible.

And then, you know, if you've seen the movie Catch Me If You Can, yeah, that's the famous check kiting, you know, check kiting they call it, movie where, you know, he was actually making fake checks, but he was also, you know, talking about like later in the movie, like how are they removing the name with like acetone. Yeah. And all that. And a lot of people are just, you know, I'm not cheap. Okay, when it comes to like checks, because I have to send checks every once in a while to somebody, you know, because that's the way you have to pay them, right? So I do buy checks, you know, but I always buy the security checks. What's that security check? So these security checks that are higher security, if you take it and put it on a copy machine, yeah, it immediately like puts a watermark onto the copy. And also, if somebody tries to erase it, it's not going to work. Or they try to put chemical on it, the check's going to basically be ruined because it's— at least you got a better chance of that not happening, right? You know, somebody not doing that. But in this case, what happened was somebody got into the guy's mailbox, got a hold of half a dozen checks, yeesh, erased the name off of a few of them, was able to get them deposited into multiple bank accounts, you know, that the guy set up, right? Bank accounts. And then, you know, because when you go to the bank, let's say I walk in and I hand them a check for $7,000, right? And then they put it in my bank account. Well, they don't give you like access to all the funds right away. Typically, they give you access to some of it. So the person was able to get out, you know, several hundred dollars or maybe $1,000 out of the— from each one of those checks. And then the check obviously was reported as fraud because when the person like me, let's say I'm the one that sent the check and then I see, oh, this check cleared, but it cleared with some other name on it. Right. Hopefully people are monitoring their bank account, right? One person didn't spot it for a long time because the guy's like, hey, we haven't received your check yet for the bill. And when the guy went and did it, the check was already cashed somewhere else, put in a bank account with a different name, and blah blah blah blah blah. So you got to really be, you know, if you're going to send out checks, you got to, you know, get security checks and all that.

But as a business, Yeah, you're saying that the customers are mad at the business?

Yeah, they— well, they, they were, they were getting mad because the guy said, where's my check?

But someone stole it, right? Stole it.

And when the people went and checked their bank accounts, right, they saw that had a different name on the check, right? They're not mad at the guy. It's not his fault.

Okay, I thought you were saying like the people were mad at the business.

No, they're upset that that happened.

Yeah, sure.

So the guy now has switched over to ACH. He told all his customers, we're not taking paper checks anymore.

Is this guy an older business?

Yeah, it's a business that's been around for like 50 years.

And, uh, he's got somebody helping him getting to go into like Web 2.0 because I'm sure he's still in web.

Well, we actually just give them a link and they just give the link to them.

They just—

we just create them like a payment portal. And they don't want to take credit cards, so they just created a portal. Click here, the customer goes there, puts in their email address, a password, creates an account. It's all secure, it's up on the ACH company server.

Boom.

And then they pay with a check and pay with their check via ACH, and it works good. Well, like, especially for like different types of companies, I've You know, so I wrote down what companies does it work for, like wholesalers and distributors where they give people, you know, like a line of credit, not a line of credit, but they give you terms. So they give you terms. So it's good for that. It's not good for, you know, oh, I want to give you pay by ACH and come in and pick up 50 cases of something and you don't know the customer. That's a little dangerous. In that case, you need to be taking a credit card. The guy's also getting set up with credit card now, but we have law offices using it, you know, CPA firms using ACH, bookkeeping services, um, and art— we just spoke with an architecture firm. And they— and you need to make sure, because a lot of these checks, you know, they're not targeting somebody who's receiving checks for like $100, like back in the day, Social Security checks. I mean, now that goes right into your bank account, right? Or it's on a card and the person already has the card that I'm mailing them card. They already have the card, it just gets funded. So, you know, but for high-value ACH, you need to be working with a good ACH company like the one that we work with, a couple, because most of them, the average sale they allow is only $2,500. Nice. So you need— if you have high ticket, high tickets, then you need to have a high-ticket ACH provider. But forgery, check forgery, I couldn't believe it. I looked up like 3 news stories, right, besides the one that I knew about, right? And here, and I'll tell you a couple of these news stories and we'll get more into this. But one is in Vermont, somebody's been breaking into this post office mailboxes outside of the post office. They attach a weighted object with something sticky, obviously like gum, And then they pull out all the envelopes they can, and then they started, you know, what they call kiting the checks, getting the name off, changing the name, depositing it, getting whatever they can. Another guy just pleaded guilty in Pawtucket, and he was caught doing the same thing. They were, they were making they, they counterfeited checks that they stole from businesses, and they made it— and they made— and they made IDs that look like the actual account holder and set up fake bank accounts and all kinds of stuff to look like the business. Like, they made themselves look like a certain business, and they were stealing the checks from this business, a few different businesses, and Then another one was somebody was stealing checks out of the department, the North Carolina Department of Insurance. And it's like crazy, like why are they putting these checks like all in like a public mailbox outside their building? Like we have one out here by the, by the road, right? They were putting it in that kind of mailbox and then people were stealing the checks out of there and then cashing it. You know, they didn't get all the money This guy, like, he cashed like 6— that cashed like a bunch of checks for thousands of dollars and then withdrew like $225, you know. But it's crazy what's going on, and, and a lot of businesses don't realize, you know, like, that's just the disruption. So, you know, your customer is going to be upset, right, because you don't have electronic forms of payment. But you can give people— like, we have law offices, right? So we set them up with a payment portal, and then they give the customer two choices: pay with a credit card and we'll charge you like 1.5% or 2%, right? Or pay with ACH, and then they pick up the fee for the ACH.

The business does?

Yeah, the business does, because it's going to cost less than accepting credit card payment. Now everything is electronic, so they can start accounting for everything electronically. You don't have to deal with, you know, can you imagine like One of the biggest— one of the biggest clients we got was in the beginning of the pandemic. We set up a few law offices because they didn't want people mailing checks to their office because who's going to process? No one's going to be there, right? No one was going to be there. So we set them up with ACH to actually process like over $1 million a month.

Nice.

So nationwide law firm. But, you know, their offices were all closed. So they were like, don't mail us any more checks, you know, go to the website, make your payment, because it's, you know, you know, it's more efficient to do that. Like, we have a client, and every time I buy something from them, I have to— we have to call them on the phone, give them the credit card over the phone, and then sometimes you don't get a hold of them, you forget about it, or they forget to send you an invoice. Right.

I just was dealing with that. I had a client last— from last year. Uh, well, it's a long-term client, and, uh, last year, uh, I don't know what happened. I just totally forgot to invoice her. Yeah, for 2022. Okay, for the hosting and maintenance and whatever. 6 months go by and I'm like, man, I haven't heard from this person, right? Like, so I go check out the website, site's still going, and I look in my— like, man, I never sent it. So I ended up sending an invoice, right?

Right.

And 6— it was 6 months late, right? So she paid it and then I just sent another invoice with the new software that we're using. There's a few things that we got to talk about, about that as well. But, um, the one thing that, uh, you know, she noticed right away that the invoice was like twice the amount, right? And I just had to explain to her like, well, you do remember like I sent you that invoice 6 months late, right? And doing so, I didn't increase the amount that she was owed. And so now she got an invoice that basically looks like it's twice the amount, right, of what it usually was.

But well, you got to keep up with invoicing. So yeah, you know, you have to send out, you know, send out the invoices and then give them a link that they can click because you don't want to deal with, you know, now this guy has like 6 customers, they're unhappy, they're not mad at him, it's not his fault, right? But they're all unhappy. So they have a bad taste in their mouth. And, you know, they got to go deal with their bank and go file a police report. You know, there's a whole investigation to try to catch the person who is doing that. But also, you know, now the business doesn't feel like their mail is secure. You know, it said the mailman drops off the mail Friday afternoon and you don't go get it out of your mailbox or they come on Saturday. And deliver the mail. And then over the weekend while nobody's around, somebody's going in there stealing the mail. Or let's say you're a business and you mail out like a bunch of checks every week, right?

Right.

And you go dump them in.

What type of business would be doing that?

Somebody that's like paying contractor, you know, independent contractors. Or maybe that's just when they pay all their invoices. And they don't want to pay with a credit card, and they don't want to do— they're an older business and they don't want to pay, you know, pay with card, and they don't want to do— they don't want to do online ACH.

You guys got to get over that, right?

The, the, the business is receiving the payments. You got to retrain your customer to say, hey, from now on we need you to do it this, this way. It's more secure, right? They're going to get their money faster because Imagine, like, I have this one, one accounting firm that I deal with, and it's hysterical. It's owned by several people, and one lady there wanted credit card processing and ACH. So she has her customers paying through the payment portal, but then the other people who are there don't use the payment portal. People still mail in checks. So I said to them, I go, why are you guys doing that? It's like silly. Right? It's silly to do that because now, like, checks come in the mail. Now, how many— were you going to go to the bank every single day? I mean, I— you know what I'm saying?

I mean, you could check— take the picture of it.

Not on a business. Yes, you can. That's not— if it's over a certain amount, there's like a limit. Okay. I think there's a limit on— I think we have a— I think, uh, my bank has a limit like $500. No, for business. I don't—

I had a business bank account. It was way more than that.

I don't know, they just, they just don't— maybe they don't— maybe I think that now that like BB&T merged with SunTrust and Truist, like they haven't put that into the app again, uh, the deposit thing.

But I remember, I mean, it's still a pain in the neck trying to— you getting mailed 20 checks, you got 5 50 checks in your office. What are you supposed to do with those?

Right. That's what I'm saying. So now people taking it out of the envelope, they're marking it paid in their QuickBooks. Then they got to make copies of the checks. Then you got to go— someone's got to go take the checks, put them on a deposit slip, stamp the back, go over to the bank. I mean, you're spending a lot of time doing that when it could all be processed electronically, wasting pointless time.

Yeah.

And so then— so I was telling you about this accounting office. This one accounting office. So they have offices in like 3 cities. So though those 3 cities take all their checks on a Friday, put them in a FedEx, the 3 places, and then they send it to the main office instead of having the people all mail. I said, why don't you just have everybody mail the check to the main office or use the ACH? They're like, oh, well, these people like to write checks. Well, there's like—

there's definitely an age group of people who still pay with checks. Right. There's—

I mean, every time someone wants a check from me, I'm like, I always forget how to put it in my printer. Oh, did I put it incorrectly? And then you got to print that.

Yeah, actually, the last— I can't even tell you the last time I wrote a check, man. It's got to be in the early 2000s.

Yeah, I mean, I literally, like, I bought, like, I, I mean, when did PayPal—

when did you— when were we starting able to pay, like, our bills with—

no, 7, 8 years ago, that 10 years ago, I'd say, right? It started, you know, it started where you could pay bills online, you know, and then the pandemic like totally increased that because places sent out notices, do not pay, do not mail in a check, you know. They started to force people to go online, and now the businesses who aren't doing that need to start doing that because there's just this increase in check fraud. I mean, I looked up a half a dozen stories that just happened within the last 30 days.

I mean, we've covered a lot of fraud on the podcast over the past couple of months. Cybersecurity fraud, just a lot of different ways of people getting—

right, what is the word? Getting ripped off. Getting ripped off, right? Yeah. And there's also— and also I will tell you this, there's identity theft on the rise. I mean, look at one of these cases where These guys were stealing the checks out of the business mailbox, made fake ID to look like the owner, opened up a bank account at a bank, you know, farther away from their office, right, where they wouldn't know them, right? And then they were depositing the, you know, depositing real checks in there. That's just complete identity theft. Identity theft.

Someone stole my identity. They got over like what, 50 grand in unemployment.

Oh yeah, I remember you were telling me about California. Yeah, and, and, and that goes on and on and on. And we get like, we get internet leads that come into the office, right? And then they'll come in and then, you know, we have like a little scrubbing technique that we use. So we look at the—

don't want to—

don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't. So I'm not going to say what it is, but we have a scrubbing technique. Yes. And then we, we find the actual business and we call it up and ask for the person. And these people, like the other day we called this guy, he got so mad on the phone, right? The, the secretary, the gatekeeper, it's like, oh, I don't know why all your— these companies are calling me. I was like, well, you know, you better tell the owner to lock his credit, watch his personal credit, his business credit, because the next thing that's going to happen is you're going to get a bunch of letters in the mail from a bunch of credit card processors who were stupid enough to give that person a merchant account because they had enough information on your business to get the merchant account, right? And then you're gonna— they're gonna say, oh, you owe us all this money for all these chargebacks or leasing for equipment or whatever it is that the guy got from them. And then you're gonna have to go get the cops and then a lawyer.

What'd she say?

And the lady's like, oh, that's BS, blah blah blah. Well, I can tell you, like, we've had cases where I've been contacted by the local police and the FBI from people that that happened to, and they've been asking me— the FBI, they got from the FBI, and, and, uh, that one the Secret Service was involved in because it was, uh, over 50 grand got, uh, charged by on various merchant accounts. And they fake some guys, uh, it's really weird too. They always pick these like companies like plumbing company, air conditioning companies, those type of companies. And they're, and they're good-sized companies too. And they pick the owner of, of one of those companies. And of course the credit card processor gets excited. Oh, some guy with 5-location air conditioning repair company, right? Oh, that looks like a great— they're going to do hundreds of thousands of $1,000, right? And they, they go, oh, maybe the, the social, you know, the guy probably used a real social, right, for the, you know, a real social, but they didn't really look into it so hard. And they, you know, the person has fake bank statements, fake merchant statements. I mean, it's not that easy to spot those, but there's other telltale signs, right?

Especially when you've been doing it for 20 years.

Yeah. So doing it, you know, so you— so, you know, but that one guy didn't believe me. And then the next thing you know, I'm getting a call from the FBI and they're like, oh, well, how did you spot it? Why did you call the guy? And I told them, I said, listen, if we see identity theft, we're going to call somebody up. And the same thing, that's why this check thing is crazy. People washing off the check with chemicals, right?

Yeah, I mean, the whole check fraud thing is And you can't believe that businesses are still accepting checks in 2023 coming up. Like, I would say no. In all honesty, I would say no.

Yeah, it's time to upgrade your system.

Banks should stop sending checks out unless they're like a business, you know. Personal checks shouldn't be a thing.

Personal. Yeah, it's weird, but there's some places like you can't even—

can you even go to a grocery store and pay with a check?

Yeah, I was in line at Publix the other day.

And I was like, that woman had to be over 80.

Oh, there was no— there was like a— there was, there was a— it was— I don't even remember. I would not say she was over 80, but there was a man and a woman.

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And they got out their checkbook, and then they have to— they don't have like the check machine there anymore. They used to have like a check machine. That's not there. So they have to go get the manager. The manager has to come over, check the driver's license, take the check, go over to the office and go, I guess they must have one piece of equipment over there to verify, verify the check. Meanwhile, like, all my stuff is on the belt. I'm like, man, you know, businesses should say, no, we don't accept checks anymore. You know, it's, it's, it's nuts, you know, how that's, you know, how that's like, you know, how that's like going, you know, like even like I went to Costco the other day, right? So I'm in Costco. And I think they only take Visa and MasterCard. They don't take American Express or Discover.

Really?

Yeah. And I remember there was a time when Costco only took like American Express. You had to have the Costco American, you know, you had to have an American Express card or the Costco American Express card. But now they have— they're aligned with Citibank, so they have their own like Citibank Visa. But checks is like, well, more people have— more people carry Visa and MasterCard than carry around an Amex. It's very difficult to get an American Express. Yeah. And Visa. And Visa is more the most popular of all the 3 cards. But check— but, you know, ACH has been on the rise. And then, you know, we're seeing new—

what does ACH stand for?

Automated Clearing House.

Say that louder for the people in the back.

ACH, Automated Clearing House.

And then there's— how does it work?

So ACH, the way it works is there's a routing and account number, the name on the bank, the name on the account, the address, and it goes through the system. And instead of going through Visa and MasterCard, it goes through the ACH system which is from NACHA, N-A-C-H-A, the National Association of Check Clearing House Association, Association, authorization, the National Automatic Clear Check Clearing House Association. But it goes through that, goes through like that, that database, goes to those guys. Yeah, it goes through like the database similar to Visa and MasterCard, which verifies, you know, the routing and account number is real. And then the money, then it goes out to the Fed, and then the Fed says, hey, does Justin have this money in the bank account? But instead of it taking a few seconds like a credit card, it takes a couple of days because you could go out and spend all your money, doesn't matter, and they got to be able to get the money and yank it out of your account, right, and send it back. So it's not like an instantaneous thing. But now we're seeing like RTP They're talking about it, real-time payments, which is going to be another like level up on ACH.

Basically, you make a payment directly from your bank and it goes to that person's bank.

Well, they would send you like a request, right? And then you would send back the money.

It's similar to like how Cash App, you send somebody a request for $20, ding, it goes to them immediately, right? So peer-to-peer sharing, right?

Why, why—

so why haven't they started this yet?

Because you have this thing called— they made this whole big deal with this thing called FedNow to be able to move this money, but I don't think that they figured out like how to do it like in a batch. So like, it doesn't— so it's good for like some businesses.

Let's say you're doing transactions for $50, $100, $200 grand, and you're doing 50 transactions for a dollar or $20. Yeah, right.

It's not efficient because it's sending them one by one by one. So they have to come up with a way to how that's going to run through, run through, you know, a system where it's going to get batched, you know, run, you know, whatever.

We are going to send this batch out at 8 PM every night, right?

So they got to figure— they got to kind of figure out like how that's going to work. For it to be a viable product for the SMB, small-medium business market, which is most of the businesses, right? I mean, it's going to work. Let's say Justin owns a lumberyard and I'm buying $80,000 of lumber and I tell my bank, oh yeah, send, you know, Justin sends me his information and I send him a real, you know, instead of a wire, I send you a real-time payment. But most of the banks haven't like got on board with it yet. You know, it's just gotta— and they gotta also— the banks, they're gonna figure out like how they're gonna—

I guess, what's the difference between that and a debit transaction though?

Well, debit, a lot of time— what, doing a debit card?

Yeah, I'm just saying, what's the difference of the real-time payment? Like if I go to a business and I— and you send— and you give me whatever, an invoice that's $800, right? And I'm like, all right, 'How can I pay this?' And then you, you ring it up and I put my debt— what's the difference between that?

Well, because of debit cards going through the Visa, Mastercard network, right? Instantly. But they haven't figured out how to do that with this FedNow real-time payments. They haven't figured out how to do that. I don't get it. Neither do I. But there— what is the difference? The difference is the debit cards going through the Visa, Mastercard network All right, real-time payments, okay, bank-to-bank transfer.

So what about when you're using Zelle and you're in PNC or whatever bank?

Because that's a customer is sending the money, they're not— you're not requesting.

But yeah, I can request you some money from Zelle.

You can send a request, right? I don't think so. Yeah, I think you can receive money. I don't think I can send money and receive money. I can't send it. I don't think you can send a Let's find out right now. Okay, I know you can send a request from like, from like Cash App, but that's also Cash App to Cash App, not send request split. Maybe not all the banks offer that yet. Oh, okay, that's what I'm saying.

So I mean, that's my— that's what I was saying, like it's not consistent. All of the apps that I use, you can request, right?

But I'm saying it's not consistent across all the banks of course not. That's the problem with, with real-time payments. But then you have other products coming out, which is called pay by bank, right? So pay by bank is another interesting product. So we've been meeting with one group, they have a product, pay by bank, but their problem is they can deal with like a mega merchant, but they can't deal with the SMB market. So we're trying to figure out how we can get them to integrate into another platform And then that platform can aggregate the transactions and then we can bring them— so like bring that to small businesses.

So I'm gonna be able to go to like McDonald's and then click pay by my bank?

Yeah, it's a little clunky of a transaction because you would click a Q— you would scan a QR code, then you'd have to log into— then it would say where do you bank, you'd have to click your bank, you'd have to log into your bank, and then you'd have to approve the transaction. So it's a little bit— want that, huh? People want to be able to do this. I think that, I think that a lot of businesses might want to do it because it's going to be cheaper than processing a credit card.

I mean, I could see where it'd be the incentive for, for like a larger business, but like a small size—

well, they only guarantee like up to $1,000.

But let's just say you have a barber shop and I'm not going to pay you with my bank account. At my bar.

Well, I'm just saying. I'm sorry, I'm just saying it could be those— a type of business where, you know, maybe only a few people are paying like that. It could be on the website you can pay like that.

I mean, let me tell you, with having the option makes sense, but like, I mean, walking into an establishment and then choosing the option pay by bank, well, let me just—

ridiculous. Okay, so outside of the US It's very popular already inside the US. It's not popular because in the US everybody likes their credit cards and their debit cards because there's rewards and there's cash back and there's points and there's money off and there's all kinds of different things, right? So we, we like in the United States credit cards outside of the US. When you talk about how do they pay in Europe, how do people pay? Australia's credit cards is very popular, but then the Asian countries and South American countries, these all these wallet payments, these wallet payments are essentially these wallets are bank-to-bank payment. It's a bank pay-by-bank payment, right? So they don't because they don't have the same capability for credit card processing. Right. And also credit is different. And also, you know, credit, the pay-by-bank thing might start to get more popular because grabbing, like, okay, give you a, for instance. So during the pandemic, everybody was getting all those $600 payments to their bank account. So debit card usage was way up, right? Tons of debit card, like we saw tons of, because we can see inside the system how many people process with a debit card, how many are with a credit card or rewards card, Amex, Visa. You can see all this data. Right. Yeah. We can pull a report every month or every week and see like, oh, here's the data of what's going on. Right. But now that the economy is not so good, right, you start to see more people put it using credit than debit. And when that happens, like 2008, 2009, what starts to happen? The banks dial back how much money you can put on your credit card. So let's say you had a $10,000 limit, well, look, they'll lower it to $8,000, then they'll lower it to $7,000, then they'll lower it to $6,000, then they'll lower it to $5,000. They'll just keep lowering people's, you know, the credit limit that they have to charge because they don't want the people to get in trouble, right? And then you'll have— and then, and then also, let's say someone's using their debit card and they mess up a couple of times and they— you know, they overdraft their bank account, then those people don't get a debit card anymore with a Visa, MasterCard logo. Then they're limited to just using a PIN. And I remember like 2008, 2009, man, we saw like especially businesses where a lot of young people were going in, their PIN debit transactions went sky high. I believe it, because that's off the Visa— that's not on the Visa, MasterCard or network that's on the PIN debit, right? And so you see that. So now we might see the same thing happen again because everything, right, everything happens and then will this happen again. And that's why I said, you know, we might see like pay by bank. Like I said, it's a clunky transaction, right? So we might see it—

sounds super clunky, but right.

But we might see it happen like more on the internet. It might become popular on the internet with people who don't want to use credit cards.

Yeah, I mean, signing into your bank with a smartphone is pretty seamless. It's not like you really need your password anymore.

You just— yeah, your face, face recognition.

But doing all those steps just turns me off.

Well, no, I'm not a consumer, right? But also, you probably like getting your points and your cash back, right?

Sure.

Okay, of course. So, you know, and people love those perks, man. Yeah, they love the perks. Like Oh, buy gas with your credit card because you get 3%— 3 cents off.

Holy shit.

I'm sorry. No, you get your 3% kickback, right? Yes. Yes. $30 worth of gas, you got like a dollar back. You got a whatever, a third of a tank, but a third of a gallon of free gas.

But no, the perks and the incentives are definitely a reason why everyone in America uses credit, right?

So outside the US, So there's a big movement which we'll do a whole nother podcast about, which is the alternative payment methods. And those alternative payment methods are going to start to— I think that they're going to start to creep in. And ACH is one of those, like, alternative payment method from credit card. And I think more businesses need to embrace, like, you don't want to take credit cards, don't take credit cards, or say, yeah, we'll take credit cards, but we're going to charge you a fee. Because we don't want to pay the fee. And then ACH. I've seen companies where I go to the website. I remember there was like a company I went to pay fairly recently and they were like, oh, if you paid with a credit card, there was a 3% fee. And if you wanted to pay with your check, they were charging $5. I was like, man, it's crazy. But you had to pay the bill. There was— that was the only—

what is the best way? When you call in?

No, that was the— oh, she called in. It was $10.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah. If you called on the phone and they had like a whole automated— I called up just to see because I was reading the disclaimer on the website. But, you know, this is the way businesses can, can handle it. If you want to take— if you want to take checks, take electronic checks set up. We can help you set up a payment portal. Your customer comes in, they may have it. You can either have it for credit card only. For ACH only, or for both. And if you want to pass a fee, pass a fee.

No-brainer.

Because maybe that's what you have to do. Maybe it's for something like you're an insurance broker and you need to collect the whole, the whole money. You can't lose money, so you charge, put a fee on there. You know, if you can't put a fee, then you don't put a fee. It just depends on how, how you want to, you know, how you want to run your business. You know, and I think businesses need to look at— I mean, with— I mean, it's crazy. And I think it's because of high unemployment and other things that are going on that there's a lot of crime. I mean, just like I was watching this video of these guys who make these glitter bombs for people that are porch pirating. Yes. So, and like, you know, like that's on the rise again. Porch pirating, you know. And then, so, you know, now, now I'm reading a half a dozen stories about people getting checks stolen out of mailboxes, and they're going outside the post office and stealing the checks out of the mailbox, and they're going into office buildings and stuff and breaking into the— breaking into the mailroom and then looking for checks, stealing the checks. I mean, it's—

I mean, listen, you know, when when you have, when you have, uh, all that time that it's taken you to do all that, you could have figured out a hustle to make, right?

Figure out a side hustle to make money. Do something. I don't know. But, you know, use the ChatGPT to write blog articles for people. I don't know. We read like that one article. Somebody interviewed the ChatGPT, like, asked the questions, and then they— their summary at the end was So great. And then we also read where Google has a tool now.

No, it wasn't Google. I found it. Well, I found this tool to find a tool that will— you copy, you paste the content that you want to check to see if AI wrote it or not. And I did that with one of the articles and 99.78—

99.97% fake, fake. Yeah. And, uh, people are running to those companies, right, signing up to get this content to put it on their web, for the— to get content put on their website.

But we're talking— and Google literally just put out articles saying that they're going to penalize you for putting out, you know, that type of content because it's not beneficial. You know, if you're not sitting down and Anyway, that's a whole nother podcast.

That's a whole nother—

just don't, just don't do it. Yeah, use it for simple things and that's it.

So if you want to take checks, take electronic checks. Get set up with electronic payments at your business. Don't get involved in this, you know, like right now I feel really bad for this business owner, right?

I don't, I don't, because he didn't listen to you and then he lets you— this, this secretary, he's trying to switch over and I don't like that. So whatever.

No, but I'm talking about the guy who's got people— the people's checks got stolen.

Oh, I feel sorry for that guy.

Yeah, so I feel bad, but you know what, you gotta, you gotta, you gotta think of— you got to be smarter than the—

smarter than the crooks, man.

Yep, smarter than the crooks. And we have it where it's very secure. You send them to a web page, the person has to put in their email, create an account, put in all their information, put in their routing number, their account number. Then they're paying their bill. So it's—

but you're, you know, you're 60 years old.

Yeah, 62.

62-year-old. You're a businessman.

Yeah.

For all the people, the, the business owners that are your age, right, who are still fighting technology—

oh yeah, what do you say to them? I say, listen, just pay us with a credit card. We don't want your check. Just give me your credit card. Let me send you a link. Pay with a credit card. Like, I don't, I don't understand why you're going through this whole thing with the, with, you know, we have to pull teeth for you to give us a check, or pull teeth to pay you.

Yeah, like, literally, the businesses that are like stuck in the Stone Ages, bro, like, it's time to chisel your way out. You know, they actually have a jackhammer. You don't even have to chisel anymore, bro. Like, it's just time to use the technology. Let the technology work for you. You know, you'll be able to live a more stress-free life. You'll have more time to spend with your wife and your doggos or your kitty cats.

You're going to make it easier on your staff, for chickens, for accounting-wise, because you'll be able to collect your money faster, increase your cash flow. And even now, it's better for you to take credit cards. Uh, here we're reading the Fed, right, for like just went up another 50 basis points, right? The Fed. So, you know, do you want to— do you want to be the bank for your customers? Because that's what you're doing when you're waiting for your payments. Just take card, pay the fee, and it's a lot cheaper. The fees on the credit card processing is cheaper than the— what, the check processing fee? Yeah, the check processing fee and the credit card processing fee is cheaper than the, the money you could be spending if you have to borrow on on your line of credit at the bank to float your business, which is floating your customers.

How does that work when the— if you get a check, you guys, and you gotta— if it bounces, you got to pay for that to be sent back to the person on an ACH? No, not ACH.

Oh yeah, you get a— if you get a bounced check, you get a bounced check fee from your bank, and then you send that. Then you have to go contact the customer, hey, I need a new check, or give me your credit card.

What are you guys doing?

Yeah, you got to get into the, the, you know, you got to get into the modern day, man. You know, a lot of businesses, it's like, oh, we need the credit card right away. But a lot of businesses have people who have terms. So if they're on terms, say, oh, we want you to pay with a credit card, pay us now, we'll give you, you know, better pricing, whatever it is. Speed up your cash flow, speed up your cash flow. It's way cheaper than borrowing against your line of credit. Agreed, you know, and it's— and less stress, you know. You don't have to deal with the guy, he's got 6 people complaining, the cops, you know. So just get out of the way, just so much easier. We've had a bunch of businesses in the last couple of years all go to ACH, you know. They offer— they offer— first one guy only started with ACH, then he added the credit card. He just put the fee. Okay, you want to give us a card? Pay the fee, no problem. And that's it. Then customers are happy, they're happy, they're reduced, you know, their employees are happy, they reduced overhead, yeah, they reduced overhead and they're getting paid faster than they were getting paid before. So it became more efficient. So that's our podcast for today. We should nickname the podcast, maybe Catch Me If You Can. That could be pretty— like, it's the Catch Me If You Can, could be the subtitles.

So look at Allen getting creative over here.

So everybody, peace out, have a great, great year. We're in 2023 and we're gonna make 2023 great. Get set up with a payment portal. Carpe diem. Yeah, there you go, cat.