No, the news isn’t fake. We really did change banks.
You know what I hate? Yes, I know hate is a strong word, but appropriate for my feelings on this issue…changing banks. I do not recommend it, 0 out of 10 stars.
For personal accounts, it’s not awful. But on the business side, what a complete disaster. It doesn’t matter how amazing the new bank is in working with you during the transition, it’s still way more work than you would ever realize.
Then once you’ve successfully navigated getting your new account open and finally getting the old accounts closed (still working on this), the biggest issue is getting your customers to change your banking information for their ACH payments.
There is so much fraud out there and scammers looking for any opportunity to screw you that no company wants to change its vendor’s banking information. The horror stories I’ve heard about people being scammed out of money because they changed the banking information are just flat out scary.
The worst was a local company that was building a new headquarters in town. Instead of using the general contractor they used for the main building to build their repair shop, they went directly to a family friend’s business to build the shop. Well, when the contractor sent the first invoice for over $800,000, the invoice included banking information. The company sent the $800,000 to the bank account listed only to find out days later that someone had hacked in and changed the banking information on the invoice.
Last I heard, law enforcement was involved but the money had not been recovered. The moral of this story is always call and talk to someone to verify the information. It is definitely worth taking the extra couple of minutes to double check that everything is correct before changing the banking information or even when setting it up the first time.
I sometimes wonder what a better world this would be if the people who spent all this time working on ways to screw people, instead used their time and talents on legitimate business endeavors.
I want to thank everyone who has helped us with this change as I know it’s not easy nor is it any fun. Please touch base with your AP department and double-check whether they have updated our account. If not, tell them to call us, and we’ll get them the correct information.
We really appreciate all your business and are trying to make this as smooth as possible. I hope everyone has a great fall and a wonderful holiday season with friends and family.
Andrea Tanis
