APL Federal Credit Union Stops $80,000 Fraud Attempt Using Eltropy Video Banking

Credit union’s video verification policy prevents wire fraud targeting member who had already lost $1.2 million at another institution

APL Federal Credit Union prevented an $80,000 wire fraud attempt by using Eltropy Video Banking to verify a suspicious transaction, protecting a member who had already lost more than $1.2 million to fraud at another financial institution.

The fraud attempt began when a wire transfer request for $80,000 appeared in APL FCU’s online system with what appeared to be legitimate documentation. A payment support specialist noticed the wire was going to an individual rather than a title company and initiated a verification call. When the voice didn’t match the member’s profile and the caller resisted video verification, the credit union froze the wire.

Three days later, the actual members called APL FCU and confirmed he had been the victim of a $1.2 million wire fraud at a separate institution. He lauded APL FCU’s security measures for acting as a critical final line of defense, keeping his remaining funds secure during the multi-institution attack.

Video Verification as Standard Practice

APL FCU implemented risk-based video verification with Eltropy Video Banking as part of its fraud prevention strategy. The credit union established a clear policy: any wire over a certain monetary amount to a third-party beneficiary requires video verification.

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“One of the rules we implemented when we took on the video portion of Eltropy was: any wires over a certain monetary amount to a third-party beneficiary will always require video verification,” said Denise Webster, Accounting Manager at APL FCU. “This approach doesn’t force staff to justify every video verification request; the policy does that for them.”

The video verification process takes two to three minutes but creates what fraudsters view as an insurmountable barrier. “At the end of the day, we’re protecting our members and the credit union from loss,” Webster said. “Once the money is gone from a wire or Zelle transaction, it’s gone.”

Sean Manion, Vice President of Lending at APL FCU, said the business case is straightforward. “All we need is one big loss to offset such a cost-effective tool,” he said. “I went into it thinking that this solution would help lending, and it’s just morphed into something so much bigger.”

APL FCU staff have become advocates for video verification at industry conferences, sharing first-hand information about scenarios where the credit union has caught potential losses and how the additional layer of security protects members.

“The longer credit unions wait to implement video verification, the longer it’s going to take to reap results,” Manion said. “If leaders want to change things in their credit union or banking world, they need to go with Eltropy.”

Ashish Garg, Co-founder and CEO of Eltropy, said APL FCU’s experience demonstrates how video verification has become a critical fraud prevention tool. “What happened at APL FCU shows why video verification matters – it gave their team the ability to act decisively on their instincts and stop a catastrophe,” Garg said. “The fraudsters couldn’t bypass that face-to-face moment of truth, and an $80,000 loss became an $80,000 save instead.”

APL Federal Credit Union, founded in 1954 by employees of The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, serves 31,000 members with $700 million in assets. The credit union has been named “Best Bank/Credit Union” in Howard Magazine’s “Best of Howard County” poll for eight consecutive years.

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