What happens after a suspicious check is flagged matters as much as the alert itself. Members need to recognize warning signs, employees need a reliable review process, and leaders need results they can interpret accurately.
Park View Federal Credit Union offers a practical example of these layers working together. Its approach combines member education, disciplined daily review, employee judgment, and AI-powered check analysis—with member protection at the center.
Four lessons from Park View’s experience can help other credit unions examine how well their own controls reinforce one another.
Members are more likely to recognize a potential scam when they know the warning signs. Park View supports that first line of defense with free education on fraud and scams, practical guidance on common and emerging schemes, fraud-related seminars, and tools that help local businesses strengthen their controls.
The most useful education is specific and actionable. It can help members recognize urgency and impersonation tactics, protect personal information, monitor their accounts, and report questionable activity quickly. It should also explain what a legitimate fraud alert will—and will not—ask a member to provide.
For credit unions, the lesson is straightforward: member education is not separate from fraud prevention. It is one of the controls.
Technology can surface suspicious activity, but an alert only creates value when it enters a clear operating process. At Park View, authorized employees review suspected fraudulent transactions alongside supporting information, apply staff judgment, and designate each item as fraud or a valid transaction.
That daily discipline gives the technology a defined role: focus attention on higher-risk activity so employees can make an informed determination. FraudSentry supports Park View’s process with AI-powered image and transaction analysis that helps surface suspicious in-clearing checks for review.
“We are extremely pleased with the way FraudSentry detects criminal check activity. FraudSentry has become a critical tool in protecting both our members and our credit union.”
— Tanya S. Holland, Director of Digital Operations, Park View Federal Credit Union
The broader lesson is that technology should fit into a repeatable daily workflow. Clear ownership, consistent review practices, and documented outcomes are what turn an alert queue into an operational control.
A fraud review process should not end when an employee makes a decision. The outcome itself is useful information.
Park View records whether a reviewed item is fraudulent or valid. When an item is later determined to be fraudulent, the team marks it accordingly so the detection models can learn from the result. Confirmed outcomes—including misses—become part of a practical feedback loop that supports future detection and more consistent decision-making.
This requires a culture that values accurate feedback over a perfect-looking scorecard. Documenting a miss may be uncomfortable, but it gives the institution information it can use to improve future detection.
Good measurement starts by asking two different questions: What fraudulent activity was confirmed? And which losses did the institution verify it stopped?
In its first 12 months after FraudSentry went live, Park View recorded $115,629.11 in confirmed fraudulent check activity in the platform.
That figure describes confirmed activity recorded in the platform, not a prevented-loss total. A small number of items were confirmed and marked as fraud after the fact to help train the detection models.
Park View separately verified the losses it prevented:
In its first 12 months using FraudSentry, Park View’s verified prevented check-fraud losses exceeded the total cost of its initial three-year agreement.
Both measures are valuable. Keeping them distinct gives credit-union leaders a clearer view of the activity their teams identified and the losses they can substantiate as prevented.
Park View’s experience is a reminder that fraud prevention is an ongoing practice, not a one-time technology purchase. For credit unions reviewing their own approach, four questions make a useful starting point:
Education, employee judgment, repeatable operations, and technology are strongest when they work together—and when the institution can explain what each layer contributes.
Read the full Park View Federal Credit Union customer story →
To see how Finovifi supports check-fraud review, learn more about FraudSentry.