[dpFund]

Hey folks -

Question for you. I had a broker send a deal to us and afterwards he stated that he thought the bank statements the client was supplying might be fraudulent. I know once we got into underwriting (assuming it goes that far) this would be exposed.

But I'm wondering if there are any experts here in the forum that can tell me (and others here) how to best spot fraudulent bank statements just from looking at what was provided?

Any feedback appreciated.

best,

Dan Page
Funding Strategy Partners

[J.Celifarco]

keep a file of real statements one for each of the main banks that you see often. When you see something that looks off or a red flag goes up having a real one to compare to helps. When a fake is on your screen next to a real statement the flaws jump out.

[Andy]

As the old saying goes, if it looks too good to be true then it is. So unusually high daily balances are a big flag. And on most altered docs, the numbers wont line up exactly, or the fonts will be slightly off. A lot of times the ending and starting daily balances wont match. Anytime that you get something that just doesnt seem right, do decision logic to verify.

[VCF]

Ask for July banks and look for any transactions on the 4th.

Other than that - John is probably right:
Keep a real copy from each bank and compare it when things get suspicious; add-up the numbers, spot holiday transactions or weird (comic sans) fonts and search for missing $ signs.

You may want to check the author of the PDF as well.

[FundingCzar]

keep a file of real statements one for each of the main banks that you see often. When you see something that looks off or a red flag goes up having a real one to compare to helps. When a fake is on your screen next to a real statement the flaws jump out.

Definitely the best way to go. Other tell tale signs- unusually high average daily balances. Another trick fraudsters will do is have a large deposit come into the account and then back it out at the end of the same day with a few checks/electronic withdrawals.

As an aside, about once a month I get statements that look completely fraudulent, but after reviewing I realized the merchant actually converted the pdf's into a word document, printed them, and then scanned them in. No clue why they would do that, but it makes the statements look ridiculously fake because of the wonky text recognition.

[Zach]

Font sizes, spacing, inaccurate math, extra images... I've seen so many I swear it's like radar lol

[nrh1lp]

I had a guy send me bank statements a few months ago where he took white out to the very last deposit of each month and over the white out he took a ball point pen and wrote $40,000 over the original $500. Idiot forgot to change the summary at the the top though

[anydealfunded]

Decision logic or micro built. If the merchant says no then just do a verbal bank verification. I always call people out and say there statements don't add up and I need to verify online. If they balk then walk away. I know a lot of people who got burned on a chili's guy and we almost did it and he declined the decision logic and bank verification. Guy ran away with over 1 million dollars and there were a lot of characters on there.

[Cfairbank]

Hey folks -

Question for you. I had a broker send a deal to us and afterwards he stated that he thought the bank statements the client was supplying might be fraudulent. I know once we got into underwriting (assuming it goes that far) this would be exposed.

But I'm wondering if there are any experts here in the forum that can tell me (and others here) how to best spot fraudulent bank statements just from looking at what was provided?

Any feedback appreciated.

best,

Dan Page
Funding Strategy Partners

Dan, I won't claim to be an expert in this area, but my underwriting team is and catches multiple fraudulent statements every week -- happy to set up a call with one or two of them if you want some additional intel on ways to identify fraudulent statements -- in most cases, as other posters have mentioned, it will be quite obvious. In the end though, as long as you do Yodlee/decision logic/Plaid/direct log-in, you should be fine even if you miss it up front (but that would be a huge waste of your time). Let me know.

[dpFund]

Thanks Everyone! This is a big help. - Dan

[channin19]

Decision logic up front has been the biggest time saver. Once a client is funded it also allows you to make sure your merchant is on the right track. It can also let you know if they have been stacked after funding.

[kpeng]

Decision logic up front has been the biggest time saver. Once a client is funded it also allows you to make sure your merchant is on the right track. It can also let you know if they have been stacked after funding.

^ This

[Michael I]

most fraud dont know how to make the daily ending math match up with the top . also i agree with the to good to be true

[BB_Cooper]

Agreed with the above comments that most fraudulent statements can easily be caught because of bad/lazy "photoshopping" in the form of transposed figures, missing logos, sections that are missing from the statements, and totals that do not add up. But on a not infrequent basis, we see true professional criminals presenting flawlessly fraudulent statements. It's been relayed that most of these near perfect fraudulent statements come from bank insiders selling fabricated statements generated on the bank's internal software. At the end of the day, Decision Logic or Microbilt's IBV is the only way to verify the authenticity of the statements-

Robert S Bloink
EVP of ISO Partnerships
Direct: 248-341-9477
Email: bb@cooperasset.com
Web: www.cooperasset.com

[anonymous]

When it comes to the better ones (which I assume are real statements converted to word format, adjusted, and re-printed as .pdf): I've found that when merging each file into one pdf using adobe acrobat, the images will be distorted in new file when fraudulent. Not sure how or why that happens, but it might help.