The headline on the story at an Oklahoma television station'swebsite said it plainly: “Mobile Banking Used To Steal ThousandsFrom OKC Business.”

The story elaborated that Paris Limo in Oklahoma City had beenlooted of some $15,000 by an employee who apparently made it ahabit to deposit the same paycheck in multiple checking accounts,effectively doubling or tripling his income.

Jimmy Paris, the company owner, acknowledged that nobodyreconciled the payroll account on a monthly basis.

All of which raises the question: how widespread is doubledipping with mobile remote deposit capture? Alan Bernstein,president of Vertifi Software, a CUSO that offers MRDC to hundreds of credit unions, said, “This is totally contrary towhat we have experienced in the three years we have providedMRDC.”

He acknowledged that there have been instances of fraud, “but wecould count them on the fingers of two hands.”

Accidental double deposits – where one spouse uses MRDC todeposit a check and, later, the other spouse deposits the papercheck – may be more common, said Bernstein. But he stressed thatnumbers for accidents are also minuscule.

Bernstein also stressed that each financial institution sets itsown MRDC limits – establishing ceilings of deposit amounts, forinstance, and some financial institutions extend it only to memberswith a track record.

He added that many companies, Vertifi included, provideduplicate detection tools. This technology captures duplicateswithin the same institution, such as when two spouses deposit thesame item.

Bernstein acknowledged that, right now, there is no foolproofway to eliminate double dipping that involves two institutions.There are time lags in Check 21 processing and, right there, is awindow that a fraudster could exploit.

At MRDC leader Mitek, chief marketing officer Scott Carter added, “the levelof losses in the mobile channel remains extremely low.”

John Walsh, CEO of North Carolina-based SightSpan Inc. and afraud expert, noted that financial institutions “are obligated todo transaction monitoring but there is a lot of weakness in thesystem,” weakness that this particular Oklahoma scamsterexploited.

But Walsh added: “The individual business owner needs to belooking at their own business account, let's not forget thatapparently wasn't happening regularly in this case.”