Part 3: What You Can Do Starting Today
This is Part 3 of a 3-part series on small business fraud prevention, co-authored by Elevate Small Business and TD Bank USA.
You do not need a big budget or a compliance department to protect your business. These habits go a long way.
Educate Yourself and Your Team
Education is the first step that can make a real difference, especially when one rushed decision can have serious financial consequences. It is not just about the owner: everyone involved in handling money or managing operations should understand the risks and know what to watch for. TD’s TD SAFE (Security Awareness for Everyone) program simplifies fraud prevention by explaining common scams, warning signs, and steps to stay protected.
If you are not sure where to start, organizations like Prospera and the Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce can also help connect you to workshops, resources, and peer networks where local business owners share what they are seeing in real time. Getting informed alongside others in your community makes the learning stick.
Verify Payment Requests by Phone
If you receive an email asking you to change banking details or send money somewhere new, call the person or company directly to confirm, using a number from their official website, not a number in the email. That one step stops many fraud attempts in their tracks.
Use Strong, Unique Passwords
Use a different password for every account. Change them at least twice a year. Avoid using birthdays, anniversaries, or anything easy to guess. A password manager makes this much easier to maintain.
Turn on Account Alerts
TD lets you set up real-time text or email alerts every time a transaction happens on your account. If something unauthorized occurs, you find out immediately, not weeks later when it is too late to act quickly.
Make It Hard to Add New Vendors
A common scam involves an employee creating a fake supplier in your system and routing payments to their own account. Require your personal sign-off before any new vendor gets added. That one rule closes a major door.
Require Two People to Approve Large Payments
Pick a dollar amount and decide that any payment above it needs sign-off from two people, including you. It takes almost no time and makes unauthorized transfers significantly harder.
Split Up Financial Responsibilities
Avoid having one person handle an entire financial process from beginning to end. The person paying bills should not be the same person checking that those payments are correct. Even in a small team, splitting these tasks makes fraud much harder to pull off.
Look at Your Own Bank Statement Every Month
Even if someone else manages your books, take ten minutes each month to review your bank statement yourself. Look for anything unfamiliar. This simple habit has caught countless cases of fraud that no automated system flagged.
If Something Goes Wrong, Report It Immediately
The faster you report fraud, the better the chance of limiting the damage. Do not wait and hope it resolves itself.
- Call your banking partner immediately. If you bank with TD, call 1-800-893-8554, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Report it to your local police.
- File a report with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). Reporting at the federal level gives authorities the best chance of stopping the fraud from hitting other businesses too.
The Bottom Line
Small business owners are some of the most resilient people out there. They push through inflation, staffing challenges, and economic uncertainty, and they keep going. But all that hard work can be put at serious risk by fraud, especially when savings are limited and every dollar counts.
The businesses that protect themselves best are not the ones with the biggest budgets. They are the ones that stay informed, build simple habits, make sure every person on their team knows what to watch for, and stay connected to people and organizations they trust.
For more guidance, visit TD’s Security Center, read One Battle, One Truth: Fraud Knows No Size, and explore the Small Business Fraud Protection Guide.
Read the full series: Part 1: What Small Business Owners Are Up Against | Part 2: The Ways Fraud Actually Happens