Skill: The Out-of-Band Callback. Beat AI-Voice Wire Fraud Before It Drains an Account

What it does. It replaces "trust the message" with "verify on a second channel." Before anyone on your team moves money or changes payment details, they confirm the request by contacting the requester on a number or channel they already had on file, not the number or reply address in the message itself.

Why it matters. The wire-fraud playbook got a brutal upgrade. Criminals now clone a voice from a few seconds of public audio and spoof a caller ID or email thread. The "CEO" who calls your bookkeeper sounding exactly right, the escrow email that says "our bank changed, send it here": both can be fake, and both can be convincing. For operators who move real money (real-estate closings, vendor payments, payroll), a single successful hit can be six figures, and wired funds are often gone for good. The defense is a simple human habit, because no tool reliably detects a cloned voice yet.

When to use it. Any time one of these is true:

• A payment instruction or bank/routing detail is new or changed.
• Someone requests an urgent, unusual, or off-cycle wire.
• The request leans on pressure or secrecy ("do it now," "don't loop anyone in").
• A voice or email asks you to bypass your normal process.

How to run it.

1. Stop the clock. Urgency is the weapon. No wire goes out on the same message that requested it.
2. Call back out-of-band. Use a number you already have on file for that person or bank: your CRM, a prior invoice, their website. Treat any number or link in the new message as unverified.
3. Verify the specifics. Confirm the exact amount, account, and reason. Read the account number back digit by digit.
4. Use a code word for money moves. Agree on a shared verbal passphrase with your bookkeeper, partner, and bank contact. A cloned voice won't know it.
5. When in doubt, escalate instead of sending. A ten-minute delay costs nothing. A wrong wire costs the balance.

Set it up in five minutes. Paste this into Claude or ChatGPT to draft the policy for your team:

Role: You are an operations-risk advisor for a small business. Task: Write a one-page "Wire & Payment Verification Policy" my team can adopt today. It must cover: (1) which requests trigger mandatory verification (new or changed bank details, urgent or off-cycle wires, any pressure to bypass process); (2) the out-of-band callback rule using a previously-known number; (3) a two-person approval threshold for wires over a dollar amount I choose; (4) a shared code-word step for verbal money requests; and (5) a short script the team can say to push back on pressure without offending a real requester. Format: a clean one-pager with numbered rules and a 4-line quick-reference checklist to tape by the desk. Keep it plain-English for non-technical staff.

Keep any account or vendor details in your private/business AI workspace rather than a public model.