Your Contractor Changed Bank Details. Check Before You Pay.

A familiar repair invoice can arrive with unfamiliar payment instructions. Before sending money, confirm the change through a contact you already trust and keep a short record of the check.

The plumber fixed the leak, the tenant says the sink works, and the invoice lands while you are halfway through dinner. Everything looks familiar until the final line: please send payment to our new bank account.

That change might be genuine. Businesses switch banks. They also hire bookkeepers and change billing systems. But the fact that the repair happened does not prove that the payment instructions came from the person who did it.

For a small landlord who handles repairs and bills alone, the useful habit is to separate those two decisions. You can approve the work while you check where the money should go. Dinner may get cold, but your bank account does not need an unexpected adventure.

A real repair can come with a false payment request

Suppose your usual electrician replaces a damaged outlet. A few days later, an email arrives with the right property address, a believable description of the visit, and a request to use a different payment account. The message even appears in an existing conversation.

Those details can make the request feel settled. They should help you match the invoice to the job, but they do not independently confirm a change in payment destination. An account or message can be compromised, and an impersonator can use details that make a request look familiar.

The Federal Trade Commission's guide to scams targeting small businesses recommends clear invoice approval procedures and close attention to payment requests. For a rental owner, that means checking both the bill and any instruction that changes how you normally pay it.

Keep a contact you can reach without the new email

When you start working with a contractor, save the business phone number you used to arrange the job. Keep it with the agreed scope and ordinary billing contact. An established contact gives you somewhere to turn if a later message asks you to change payment methods.

If you already know the contractor, use the number in your existing records rather than a number added to the questionable invoice. Calling the new number and asking whether the new bank details are correct only checks the request against itself.

For a first-time contractor, you may not have much history. Establish the billing process during the original booking or another independently arranged conversation. Ask who sends invoices and how payment details will be supplied. This will not eliminate every risk, but it gives you a baseline instead of making an unexpected email your only reference.

Make the callback ordinary, not accusatory

You do not need to begin with, "Is your business being impersonated?" A routine explanation is easier on everyone: "I received a request to change the payment details for the repair at Oak Street. I check changes by calling the contact I already have. Did your office send it?"

Make the call yourself using that established number. An incoming call from someone claiming to be the bookkeeper is not the same check. The FTC warns that scammers can fake caller ID, so a familiar name on the screen is not enough.

Ask the contractor or an established billing contact to confirm the specific invoice and the requested change. If the person cannot confirm it, pause the payment while you resolve the mismatch through trusted contacts. A reply from the same uncertain email account does not settle the question.

A legitimate change does not need a dramatic investigation. It needs a separate confirmation that you can explain later. If the contractor says nothing changed, preserve the message and tell them what you received. Avoid opening additional attachments or following new payment links while the request remains unresolved.

Check the invoice against the work, too

Confirming the payment destination does not make every line of the invoice correct. Compare the bill with the estimate or agreed scope, the property and unit, and any extra work you approved. An accurate bank account cannot rescue a duplicate bill.

Return to the electrician example. Perhaps the contractor confirms the new account, but the invoice includes a second visit you do not recognize. Resolve that charge separately. Do not let a successful security check turn into automatic approval of the entire bill.

Also look at your payment record before sending anything. If you scheduled the original invoice yesterday, a resent copy should not trigger another payment today. Keep the invoice number and payment status together so that the next person who looks at the file, even if that person is you after a long weekend, can follow what happened.

Leave a short note instead of a folder full of bank details

Once the change is confirmed, record the date, the person you reached, the contact source you used, and which invoice the conversation covered. A useful note might say: "Called the office number saved at booking. Billing contact confirmed the payment change for the Oak Street outlet repair." This is an example, not a script you must copy.

Keep sensitive payment information in your appropriate secure payment system. You do not need full account numbers in a maintenance note, a shared spreadsheet, or a tenant conversation. The record of your check should explain your decision without spreading financial details around.

If a partner or bookkeeper helps with payments, agree on who can approve a change. An informal handoff can undo a careful check when one person pauses an invoice and another pays it from their inbox. Give the invoice a clear status, such as awaiting payment-detail confirmation, until the check is finished.

If you already sent the money

If you suspect a payment went to an impersonator, contact your bank or payment provider immediately through its official contact channel. Explain what happened and ask what action is available for that payment. Do not wait for the contractor to finish investigating before alerting the institution that handled the transfer.

Preserve the invoice, messages, transaction reference, and the timeline of your calls. Notify the real contractor through the trusted contact. Recovery depends on the circumstances, so do not assume a transfer can be reversed or that reimbursement is guaranteed. Follow your financial institution's instructions and use the official reporting channels appropriate to your location.

A payment rule you can keep using

The routine can stay small enough to follow on a busy day:

• Match the invoice to authorized work and check whether it has already been paid.
• Treat changed payment details as a separate approval.
• Confirm the change through an established, independently chosen contact.
• Record the check and make the payment only after the questions are resolved.

If you are looking at tools for your rental administration, you can download PropertySea and see whether it suits your day-to-day work. Keep this callback habit regardless of which software you use. An app name on your phone does not verify a contractor's bank account.

Before you close the next repair file, save the contact you would call if the payment instructions changed. That small bit of preparation is much easier while everyone remembers the job than when an urgent invoice turns up at dinner.

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