Glossary · Fraud
Remit-to change
Also called: Bank change, Payee change, Remittance change, ACH change
Definition
A remit-to change is a request to change where a carrier, factor or broker gets paid, such as a new bank account, and a prime target for fraud.
Legitimate reasons exist: a carrier changes banks, switches factors with a letter of release and a new NOA, or restructures. Fraudulent requests look the same on paper. An attacker with a hijacked mailbox, a lookalike domain or control of the carrier's FMCSA record asks you to send the next payment somewhere new.
For a factor, a bank change on a client's account is the moment when every earlier check can be bypassed. Onboarding verified the right people and the right account; a single email can swap the account, and ACH payments are hard to recover once they land. IC3 advises verifying account-change requests through a secondary channel.
- Call the client at a phone number you held before the request, never one from the email.
- Confirm the new account belongs to the carrier's legal entity, not an individual or another company.
- Require a second person to approve the change.
- Hold or limit the first payment to the new account, and tell the old contact that a change was made.
This is the event CarrierKYC's Verified Payee is built around: every bank or ownership change is re-verified before the next ACH. The remit-to change checklist and the verification SOP are free.
Sources
- 01FBI IC3: Business Email Compromise: The $55 Billion Scam · Public service announcement I-091124-PSA, 2024-09-11