Bank change?Call backfirst.

A Tuesday morning in the business office

At 8:05 on a Tuesday morning, Denise Carter opens the accounts payable inbox at the Harlow County Schools central office. The first message is from Red Clay Bus Lines, the contractor that runs six of the district's bus routes. The monthly route invoice is due Friday, and the email says the company has "moved its banking relationship." A letter on company letterhead is attached with new routing and account numbers. The last line reads: "Please update our remittance details before Friday's payment so there is no delay."

Nothing about it looks odd at first. The logo is right. The email signature has the real office manager's name. The invoice number matches the one Denise saw last month. The sender address is accounts@redclay-buslines-billing.example. The real vendor uses redclaybuslines.example, but at a glance the two look almost the same.

Denise does not reply and does not click anything. She opens the vendor file in the finance system, finds the phone number the district has used for Red Clay for three years, and calls it. The office manager says the company has not changed banks and did not send the letter. Later, the technology director learns that a criminal had been reading the vendor's real email for weeks. That is how the message knew the invoice number and the Friday due date.

One phone call kept a full month of bus payments in the right hands. This course is about making that call automatic, for every bank change, every payroll change, every W-2 request and every "quick favor" that involves money.