As a business owner who has just made a sale, have you ever had to revisit and refresh your bank app in anticipation of payment, even when the customer has sent you proof of payment and it never comes through? That stings differently especially when the customer has parted with the product. It almost feels like you are playing the character Vladimir, who is waiting for the arrival of the mysterious Godot, who continually sends word that he will appear but who never does in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting For Godot. Fake alerts are one of the most bothersome menaces in the country right now and this is raising a lot of concern for business owners. Fake alerts are simply when someone claims to make a transfer and sends a doctored receipt as proof of payment, in a bid to scam or defraud the receiver/business owner. This is something huge that can ruin a business if not nipped at its bud.

A lot of entrepreneurs and small business owners have fallen victims of this punishable act and here are some of the reasons why this happened to them:

• They are too trusting. Not to say that trust is not a virtue, but one has to be cautious of when to employ this said virtue.
• They were not vigilant enough. One has to almost attain the status of a hawk’s view when dealing with business finances
• They didn’t track their payments by other means like emails or check their account balance.
• They took information from the wrong source. 
• They did not empower themselves with the right tools for such eventualities

Seeing that this, among other financial crimes, is one that affects businesses and its growth, especially online businesses(social media vendors), it is important that business owners are alert and put measures in place to completely avoid this.

The main question is ‘how do you make sure you don’t fall victim to fake alerts?

Here are simple and possible measures we recommend you take:

• Work with a trusted brand to monitor your payments. Traction App does this for you seamlessly. With this app, you can issue invoices and register payments immediately you confirm them. This way, you are super sure that you got the money.
• Make sure that your email is linked to your bank account. This is another way to check payments to confirm that you received the money.
• You can also confirm payment by checking your account balance to see if the money sent has been added to your account. 
• Do not give out your products to a customer you don’t really know or trust without confirming payment.
• Have an account officer, whom you can call to make enquiries when you get confused about any transactions. Ask the right source.

With these various methods put in place for confirming payments and the other precautions stated above, no fraudulent alert should be able to affect you or your organization. 

Take charge of your finances now, Download the Traction App on Google playstore using this link or use the web version using this link .