When Getting Paid Goes Wrong: Payments, Scams, and a 10-Minute Safety Check

The reality hasn’t changed: almost every serious business will face at least one major disruption in its lifetime. What does change is the shape of that disruption. Last week we looked at outages and missed deliveries. This week, I want to focus on something less visible but just as damaging: disruptions and scams that interfere with how your business gets paid.

In our area, most owners depend on a handful of tools—card terminals, online payment portals, emailed invoices, and bank transfers. When those tools hiccup or someone tricks your team into sending money the wrong way, it may not make the news, but it can turn a normal week into a cash-flow problem.

This edition of the Greater East Montgomery Resilience Brief again shares two local risks to watch and one ten-minute action you can actually take this week.
 

The data is clear: small businesses (SMBs) are not flying under the radar, with 43% of all cyberattacks targeting small businesses 

This brief looks at:

• Payment interruptions that stall or block normal transactions.
  Recent stories have highlighted card processors going down, online payment portals freezing, and fraud filters suddenly blocking legitimate charges. For a local business, that can look like customers standing at the counter while the terminal spins, online orders that never complete, or regular clients who suddenly “can’t pay today” because the system won’t cooperate. Even a few hours of this, especially on a busy day, can mean real money lost and extra time chasing payments.

• Scams and “look-alike” messages that trick your team.
  At the same time, there has been a steady stream of scams aimed squarely at small and mid-sized businesses. Fake invoices that look close to the real thing, emails that appear to come from a vendor asking you to “update bank details,” or urgent messages that seem to be from a manager asking someone to buy gift cards or wire funds. These attacks rely on pressure and speed, and they target busy people who are trying to keep the day moving, not people who are careless.

One 10-minute step: Create a simple “Pause and Verify” rule for money movement.

You do not need a full cybersecurity program to make yourself harder to hit. In the next week, take ten minutes to set one clear rule for your business:

No one changes how money moves or where it goes based on an email, text, or pop-up alone....ever!

Instead, any time someone is asked to:

• Pay an unexpected invoice,
• Change bank or payment details, or
• Send money or gift cards urgently,

....they need to pause, then verify through a known, trusted channel. That might mean calling the vendor at the number you already have on file, or checking directly with you or your bookkeeper, before anything is approved. Write this rule down in plain English, share it with your team, and walk through one or two examples so they know exactly what “Pause and Verify” looks like in your business.

I’ve keep these briefs in plain English and written for busy owners and managers, because you probably don't have full-time risk people (like me). The goal is to make it a little harder for one rushed moment to turn into a very expensive mistake, and to move you one small step closer to being outage and disruption ready.

If you’d like a quick snapshot of your own situation, I’ve set up a 2-minute mini-assessment (below) you can take online. You’ll see where your biggest gap is, and I’ll send you one practical fix you can use this week.

• Resilience Intelligence page 

• Take the 2-minute mini-assessment 

• Contact us 

If one payment failure, scam, or “frozen” checkout line could really hurt your business, and you'd like to know more specific ways to protect your business, please reach out to me. You can use the Contact Us link above if you like. 

Thank you,
Warren