A single stolen check can sit unnoticed for months. For one Southern California general contractor, that's exactly what happened — a check was stolen, washed, made payable to someone else, and cashed. Nobody caught it until a subcontractor called six months later asking why he'd never been paid. By then, the bank's claim window had already closed.
That's the risk every construction finance team is running, whether they know it or not. Draw payments, subcontractor checks, retainage releases, payroll — multiplied across operating, trust, and project-specific accounts, often at more than one bank. Every one of those transactions is a potential target, and ...