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Security Reminder: Vendor Payment Instructions
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Important Security Reminder • September 29, 2026
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New Payment Instructions?
Call Before You Pay
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Dear Client:
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Fraudsters get into a mailbox, yours or your vendor’s, and read it for weeks. They learn who pays,
who approves, and when invoices fall due. Then they send new wire or ACH instructions in the
vendor’s name, timed just before a real payment. The email may come from a look-alike address or
from the vendor’s own hacked mailbox. It copies the signature, and a call may follow, from a number
in the same email. The FBI calls this “business email compromise.”
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No bank can know whether your vendor has changed banks. Only your vendor can confirm that, and only at a
number you already have.
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How to Protect Your Payments
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Call before you pay. Confirm every change to payment instructions by telephone, at a
number you already have. Never use a number supplied with the change.
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Read the account number back. On that call, read the new account number aloud and have
the vendor confirm it from their records.
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Never confirm by reply. If the mailbox is compromised, the fraudster answers.
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Apply the rule everywhere. The same rule covers a new vendor’s first payment and
any employee direct deposit change.
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Wait one business day. Do not pay to new instructions the day they arrive. Urgency and
secrecy are the fraudster’s tools, not the vendor’s.
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Use two approvers. Require two people to approve a change in payment instructions and
the payment itself.
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Check the address, not the signature. Read the full sender email address character by
character. A matching signature, caller ID, or a familiar voice is not proof.
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Lock down the mailbox. Use multi-factor authentication on every mailbox that handles
invoices or payroll. Check for forwarding rules you did not create, and delete them.
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Tell your vendors and customers. Put in writing that you never change payment
instructions by email. Ask the same of them.
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If a Payment Has Already Gone Out
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Minutes matter. Stolen funds are usually moved on within hours.
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Call the Bank at once. Call Chain Bridge Bank, N.A. at (703) 748-2005 and ask to cancel the
payment. Telephone hours are Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern.
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Sign the cancellation request. Complete and sign the Bank’s cancellation request form
when the Bank provides it.
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File with the FBI the same day. File a complaint with the FBI’s Internet Crime
Complaint Center (IC3), whatever the amount. In 2025 the FBI’s Recovery Asset Team froze funds
in more than half of the cases it acted on when information was received immediately.
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Keep the evidence. Keep the original emails and any voicemails. Do not forward the emails;
forwarding strips the data investigators need. Do not wipe or reset the mailbox before an
investigator has seen it.
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Change the password. Change the password on the mailbox involved, and check it again for
forwarding rules.
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Tell your vendor. Their mailbox may be the one compromised, and their other customers are at
risk.
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Notify your insurance carrier. Many policies require prompt notice.
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Once a payment has been sent, it normally cannot be cancelled. Recovery depends on the bank that received
the funds, and is not certain. FinCEN reports better recovery when law enforcement is notified within 72
hours.
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Payment orders, including requests to cancel one, are governed by law and by your account and service
agreements.
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The practices above follow public guidance on business email compromise from IC3 and FinCEN. More guidance is on the Security Center page of the Bank’s
website.
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Sincerely,
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Chain Bridge Bank, N.A.
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This communication is provided for informational and security awareness purposes only. It does not
constitute legal, tax, or investment advice and does not modify, amend, or supplement any agreement with
Chain Bridge Bank, N.A.
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Contact Us
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(703) 748-2005
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chainbridgebank.com
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Member FDIC
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Please do not send payment instructions or account information by email. For assistance, including to report unauthorized activity, please call the Bank at its published number, (703) 748-2005.
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