About Accurate Disbursing

Accurate Disbursing was formed in 2005 as the result of a need in the Midwestern U.S. for an independent disbursing company to provide construction disbursing services for multiple title organizations.

Since its inception, Accurate Disbursing’s goal has been to provide superior nationwide online disbursing services for lenders, developers, and all of its construction partners. Accurate Disbursing has now disbursed on commercial and residential construction in over 28 states for over 85 financial institutions across the US.

Handling residential, subdivision development, and commercial projects, Accurate Disbursing protects your interest through each stage of the construction process.

Accurate's Wire Fraud Prevention Story

Accurate Disbursing was working with a new general contractor on an out-of-state deal for a remodel of an office building. Accurate’s Disbursing Officer had been emailing with the owner of the general contractor about the deal for over two weeks. However, unbeknownst to Accurate, the owner’s email account had been compromised, and a fraudster (“the owner”) was using the owner’s legitimate email account to impersonate the real owner.

“The owner’s” emails did not contain significant misspelling or other obvious signs of fraudulent activity. Their emails even included multiple employees from the general contractor cc’d on the chain, the general contractor’s email footer, and the company's fraud warnings.

Prior to the disbursement date, Accurate received an email from “the owner” of the general contractor with a set of Chase Bank wire instructions listed in the body of the email. “The owner” listed a number for Accurate to call to verify and was pushy, requesting the funds be sent that day.

As a CertifID customer, Accurate's disbursement processes included sending a CertifID Confirm Request to allow the recipient of the wire to confirm their wire instructions prior to disbursement. This quick process validates the identity of the recipient and prompts their approval on where the funds will be sent. Additionally, CertifID provides $1M of direct insurance coverage for the wire.

Accurate sent a CertifID Confirm Request with the provided Chase Bank instructions to “the owner”. “The owner”, who Accurate had been emailing for weeks, attempted to complete the Confirm Request; however, CertifID’s layered security technology flagged "the owner" as suspicious and did not allow them to proceed. Accurate’s Disbursing Officer was notified that “the owner” had failed CertifID, raising a big red flag on this wire transfer.

Accurate informed “the owner” it would not proceed with the wire without a successful confirmation through CertifID. “The owner” quickly responded via email with a different set of wiring instructions on a PDF, now directing the funds to a Citizens Bank account. Accurate thought this was suspicious, as most of its customers do not change wire instructions, and sent a second Confirm Request to confirm the new wire instructions with “the owner”.

For a second time, “the owner” failed the Confirm Request due to CertifID’s layered security technology flagging this individual as potential fraud. Accurate’s Disbursing Officer called the verification number “the owner” provided in their initial email to identify what was wrong. When the voice on the line drastically differed from previous calls, Accurate immediately ceased communications. Accurate’s Disbursing Officer then reached out to CertifID’s Support Team to request further insight as to why “the owner” failed to pass CertifID's security.

The CertifID Support Team identified “the owner” was attempting to present their location as being in Georgia; however, CertifID’s layered security technology identified “the owner” was operating out of Nigeria, a wire fraud hotbed.

CertifID’s Support Team immediately contacted Accurate. They informed the Disbursing Officer to proceed with extreme caution due to the high likelihood Accurate was communicating with a fraudster via a compromised email account. Accurate then contacted the general contractor using a verified phone number. When the real owner of the general contractor answered the call, he was surprised to have not seen any of the email communications that had taken place on his account.

After establishing secure communication with the general contractor, Accurate sent a CertifID Confirm Request to the real owner. On the first attempt, he successfully passed CertifID’s layered security technology and confirmed the wire instructions adding $1M of direct insurance coverage on the wire. Accurate was able to fully fund the deal to the correct account.

Following a debrief with Accurate on the details and communications, CertifID worked with Federal Authorities to deactivate the fraudulent bank accounts and share the newly black listed details ensuring these details could not be used in future wire fraud attempts.

"There are 121,000 reasons, which was the amount of the transaction, why we like using CertifID."

David Rhoads, General Manager at Accurate Disbursing