How a broker CRM catches payments headed to the wrong account

Payment fraud at a brokerage usually starts with a customer being asked to send a deposit or balance to an account that is not the company's. A CRM can find that request in your texts and customer emails, compare the account with your own list, and email a manager while there is still time to call the customer.

How car shipping payments go to the wrong account

A car shipping customer usually pays twice: a deposit to the broker and, on most orders, the balance to the driver at delivery. That gives money two chances to go somewhere it should not. A salesperson can ask for the deposit on their own Zelle number. A customer can be given a handle that belongs to nobody on the order. An account the company closed can stay in a template and keep going out.

In each case the customer believes they paid, the broker and the carrier have no record of it, and the argument starts when someone asks for the money again.

What payment fraud protection in a CRM should do

Set up the company payment account list

The alert compares every account it finds with this list, so the list has to be complete. Add every account the company takes money on, one per line: the business $cashtag, the business @venmo, the Zelle phone or email on the business bank account, and the bank account itself. Leave out anything personal, including the owner's. If a customer is ever told to pay a personal account, you want to hear about it.

A carrier's phone on file is fine, so a driver who takes the balance at delivery does not set off an alert.

Update the list the same day an account changes. A new company account missing from the list sets off an alert every time a salesperson sends it, and a closed one left on it lets a message naming it pass without a check.

Alerts for unhappy customers and unanswered messages

A customer who writes about a bad review, a scam, a refund or a lawyer needs a manager quickly, whatever caused it. The CRM should flag those messages and email a manager the same way it does with payment accounts.

Time is the second check. If nobody texts, emails or calls back an unhappy customer within a set number of minutes of your working hours, the manager should hear about that too. Pick a number your desk can keep every day.

The daily STOP report

TCPA and carrier rules restrict texting people who opted out. Leader CRM refuses to text a number that sent STOP, and the daily STOP report lists any text that still reached one, so you can find out how it was sent and stop it happening again.

Desk habits that go with the alerts

1. Tell every customer in writing which payments go to the company and which go to the driver, and that nobody from the company will ask them to pay any other account.
2. Take the deposit on the order. A card charged from the CRM puts the payment and every attempt in the payment log.
3. Log every payment between customer, broker and carrier on the order, including the ones the CRM did not charge. See e-sign and payments on the order.
4. Keep customer conversations on company lines and inboxes. The CRM reads texts on your lines and customer emails in your inboxes, and it cannot read a salesperson's personal phone.
5. When a payment alert comes in, call the customer from the company line before anyone replies in the thread.
6. Read the STOP report every day, and open each alert when it arrives.

Alerts are one part of the owner's daily view. The rest is in what an owner should see every day.

This week, write down every account your company takes money on and compare it with what your salespeople send customers. Then enter that list in your CRM and name the managers who get the alerts. Leader CRM's settings are on the risk alerts page.