Check cloning is the latest scam targeting Florida lawyers.

Shanell Schuyler, director of ACAP/Intake, said The Florida Bar has recently been made aware of about 20 instances of cloned or counterfeited trust account checks. Sophisticated, organized fraudsters have obtained the trust account banking information of Florida lawyers and have reproduced trust account checks that are nearly impossible to distinguish from the real thing. The fake checks contain all the information needed to pass as being written on the real trust accounts.

“The lawyers still have the physical checks sitting in their checkbooks in their offices; however, the bank receives a cloned check and sometimes processes it,” Schuyler said. “Lawyers who are diligent about monitoring their trust accounts catch these cloned checks quickly. However, lawyers who are not so diligent may find themselves responsible for paying back thousands of dollars to their trust accounts pending the outcome of the bank’s investigations.”