Freight Payments: Verify a Changed Bank Account

Freight payments need a separate bank-change check. Keep the invoice review and the new payment instructions distinct.

Freight Payments: Verify a Changed Bank Account

Illustrative office photograph, not a record of a payment or incident. Photo: www.Pixel.la Free Stock Photos / Wikimedia Commons, CC0, unmodified.

A freight invoice can describe a real load and still arrive with a payment change that needs checking. For a small carrier, the useful question is specific: who independently confirmed the new bank instructions? A familiar signature, correct load number or long email conversation should not be the final approval step.

The FBI’s guidance on business email compromise recommends checking changes to account numbers or payment procedures directly with the requester. It also warns about urgency and advises finding a contact number independently. The workflow below applies that advice to a hypothetical trucking office; it is an editorial checklist, not a report about a particular carrier.

Separate the bill from the requested change

Imagine that your dispatcher forwards an invoice for an agreed service. The amount matches the purchase record, but the message says the supplier has changed banks. Start two separate checks: whether the business owes this invoice, and whether the requested destination is authorized. Passing the first does not complete the second.

Keep the original invoice reference, service description and existing supplier record together. Record what changed and when the request arrived. Do not overwrite the established payment instructions while the new information is still being checked. Mark the request as pending so another person does not mistake it for an approved update.

Use the contact you established before the request

Call through a number already held in your supplier file, or obtain contact information independently from the questionable message. Ask for the person responsible for payment instructions. Reading the new phone number from the same email and calling it would leave the verification tied to the request you are trying to check.

Describe the change without sharing unnecessary account information. Ask whether the business requested it, which document identifies the instruction, and who can confirm it through the established process. If the contact cannot resolve the question, keep the change pending and agree on the next verified contact. A time limit cannot replace that confirmation.

Give dispatch and accounting different jobs

Dispatch may confirm that the load or service exists. Accounting needs to establish who is authorized to change the payment record. Write down those responsibilities before a busy afternoon makes the decision for you. One forwarded message should not silently become both evidence of the work and approval of a bank change.

In a very small business, the same person may handle both jobs. Use separate checkpoints anyway: first verify the commercial record, then verify the instructions through a different contact route. Where a second authorized person is available, ask that person to review the completed verification before the record is changed.

Keep a short confirmation record

Create a dated note containing the invoice reference, the nature of the requested change, the established contact method used, the person reached and the decision. Record unresolved questions as unresolved. Avoid copying full bank details into a group chat or sending the entire customer file to everyone involved.

A practical internal status sequence is received, checking, confirmed or rejected, and then handled under the company’s payment procedure. Those are suggested office labels, not bank or government classifications. Their purpose is to make the handoff visible, especially when an owner answers a call while someone else prepares the payment run.

If your customer receives the suspicious instructions

The same issue can affect money coming into a carrier. A customer may ask whether your company changed its remittance information. Have an established contact handle that question through the normal verified route. Check your own records before telling the customer which instruction to use.

Keep the disputed message and its reference with the internal review. Tell the relevant staff that the change is under examination so they do not provide inconsistent answers. Do not ask the customer to send account credentials, security codes or an unrestricted screenshot of its banking session to demonstrate what happened.

If a transfer has already been sent

The FBI advises contacting the financial institution immediately and reporting the matter to its Internet Crime Complaint Center, IC3. Preserve the relevant messages and transaction information for those channels. An attempted recovery is not a recovered payment; record the actual response and next step without promising that funds will return.

While that response is underway, review which internal payment instruction was changed and who needs the corrected status. Keep the investigation and the ordinary invoice record connected without marking an unresolved transaction as paid, recovered or cancelled merely to clear a task list.

Use this checklist before the next payment run

  • Match the invoice to the work and the established business record.
  • Identify the exact requested change without overwriting the old instruction.
  • Confirm through an independently established contact route.
  • Record the decision and the person authorized to implement it.
  • Escalate an already-sent suspicious transfer promptly through official channels.

For the reporting destination, use the FBI’s official IC3 website. This guide does not verify a particular invoice, account or payment recipient. Its practical purpose is a repeatable handoff: confirm the change before it becomes the destination for a real freight payment.

Original source: FBI, Business Email Compromise, consulted October 21, 2026. The trucking-office example and workflow are TSN editorial analysis.