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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Crime Thief Steals $30,000 From Children's Organization

Posted by Unpaid Intern on Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 3:21 PM

Post by news intern Alexander P. Brown

An unknown thief has stolen $30,000 from the Kids Company, a Ballard-based business that runs extracurricular activities inside Seattle elementary schools, according to a recently released police report. But it's unclear who stole the money or whether the dough can be recovered.

On September 14, the company's accountant noticed that $25,000 had been transferred into their general account from one of the company’s other accounts without authorization, the report says. The accountant contacted the Sterling Savings Bank to inquire what happened, but the report doesn't explain if the bank provided an answer.

The next day, the report says, another unauthorized transfer was made; this time $30,000 was removed from the Kid's Company's account and deposited into the account of a business in Florida, where it was then forwarded to the Ukraine. Hackers also scrubbed several employee records from the company's payroll database, and they got access to the bank account numbers of every employee at the business. But the police report says that company accountants then stopped the unknown thieves from transferring another $30,000.

Kid’s Company may be unable to get back the stolen money, the report says. Sterling Savings reportedly told the company that the bank could not refund the money due to regulations of the Automated Clearing House (ACH) electronic network, the fund transaction network where the theft occurred.

Seattle Police referred Kid’s Company officials to the FBI and local-law enforcement departments in Florida, which declined to take the case. The Kids Company filed the case with Seattle Police Fraud/Forgery Unit. Calls to the business have not yet been returned.

Comments (16) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

Many banks and financial institutions simply refuse to do business in Florida, Miami/DadeCo in particular, for exactly these reasons. The assumption is that a FLA company is a front for some criminal operation, usually Latin American drug gangs. I guess we can add Russian mafia to the list of Florida "entrepreneurs".

Posted by Sir Vic on September 30, 2009 at 3:25 PM

Dade County also sucks for having the longest standing breed ban in the U.S.

Stealing from kids is beyond low

Posted by julie russell

on September 30, 2009 at 3:36 PM

Money mules.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ securityfix/2009/09/ money_mules_carry_loot_for_org.html

Posted by Massive Attack on September 30, 2009 at 3:37 PM

Once again the cunting banks get away with murder. Just like all those criminal transactions through Western Union -- they get their fees, you get the thick end. "Oh no, we can't possibly do anything about that", when the fucking thieves came in THROUGH THEIR NETWORK AND ROBBED THE ACCOUNT THEY WERE HOLDING IN TRUST.

It's no different than if you deposited a big wad of cash and the bank got robbed -- you think they'd get away with telling you, "hey, sorry, mate, your money's gone, nothing we can do"? I don't think so.

Kids Company should tell Sterling Bank to GET FUCKED and transfer their accounts out of there.

Posted by Fnarf

on September 30, 2009 at 3:51 PM

Posted by Fnarf

on September 30, 2009 at 3:51 PM

Mitchell & Webb put it best:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9ptA3Ya…

Posted by Wicked Virgin

on September 30, 2009 at 4:00 PM

Download 11 songs on the internet, and the full force of federal law enforcement will be all over you ready to throw you in jail for 5 years and fine you millions.

But if you are the victim of bank fraud, oh well. That's life. Law enforcement has other priorities than going after small stuff like that.

Posted by Paul F on September 30, 2009 at 4:12 PM

I know it's really hard not to include "the" with "Ukraine," but please resist the impulse.

Posted by keshmeshi on September 30, 2009 at 4:18 PM

@8 seconded

Also I think they should tell the transferring network to go fuck themselves. This was not an authorized transfer so possibly this organization is not bound by their terms of use.

Posted by anonanonanon on September 30, 2009 at 4:38 PM

@ Fnarf,

Better yet, everyone who has a bank account Sterling Savings should move their money to a different bank and tell them why. If they lose enough accounts and get enough bad press, they may cough up $30,000 to Kid's Company just to make themselves look better.

Posted by Y.F. Redux on September 30, 2009 at 5:25 PM

Wait a minute. I work for a financial institution that uses the ACH system, and reversals happen every fucking day. In fact, in the first five days, you can reverse any ACH for no reason whatsoever, and you have 60 days to place a stop payment. Occasionally, someone makes a deposit fraudulently, and our first advice to the victim is to tell their banks to do a reverse ACH. If this had been done by bank wire, a different system, that would be different, as that's as good as transferring cash, but if the bank didn't see massive red flags about transferring an amount of that size out of the fucking country, the FBI, IRS, and about a dozen regulatory agencies should be going over their books to discover the massive amounts of money laundering they're enabling. Either you're getting an incomplete story, or something is very, very, very wrong with the banks involved.

Posted by Gitai on September 30, 2009 at 5:53 PM

Shrill old Fnarf -- The fault is with the non-profit for not maintaining adequate security on their computers. As in nearly every one of these cases, I'm guessing they did not run anti-viral, had a keystroke-logging trojan which recorded their bank account access info, the criminals executed the transfer to a money mule INSIDE THE COUNTRY (got that, Gitai???) who then moved the money overseas.

Read the article at the link above for all you need to know about how this is all going down. If you think banks should police every business's online security, then I hope you're OK with $5000 ATM fees, cuz honey, that's what it would take to pay for that.

But please, it feels so good to blame the banks for everything, you just go right ahead. And use that fun English slang you're so into, while you're at it...MATE!!!

Posted by Massive Attack on September 30, 2009 at 6:12 PM

"Mate" is predominantly Aussie slang, not English. Mate.

Posted by Fnarf

on September 30, 2009 at 6:19 PM

Disgusting - but a fraud that is becoming more common.
Companies can protect themselves against this type of fraud.
ACH blocks are one good step.

Mary Schaeffer
author Fraud in Accounts Payable: How to Prevent It (John Wiley & Sons)
publisher CFO & Controllers Accounts Payable Management Journal
www.ap-now.com

Posted by AccountsPayable on October 1, 2009 at 6:54 AM

@10 FTW!

Or better yet: You don't even have to have an account to call Sterling Bank and ask them why they're stealing from Seattle's schoolkids!

The Ballard branch: (206) 789-5755

Posted by Timrrr on October 1, 2009 at 10:51 AM

Could the FDIC/NCUA insurance rules (you know, up to $250k or something) help out with this one?

Posted by find out what your options are on October 3, 2009 at 4:02 PM