Greenville Man Sentenced to 28 Months In Federal Prison For Bank Fraud

A Greenville man was sentenced to two years and four months in federal prison for bank fraud.

Michael Brian Cotter, 64, deceived "banks by artificially inflating his company’s sales numbers to avoid bank scrutiny over its excessive consumer chargebacks," according to a media release from the U.S. Attorney's Office.

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Cotter was the CEO of a tech support company that operated from a call center in India, according to the release.

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"In 2016, when banks began restricting the company’s ability to process debit and credit card payments because of fraud and chargeback concerns, Cotter and his co-conspirators began purchasing virtual debit cards to run thousands of sham transactions on their own merchant accounts," the release said.

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"In doing so, Cotter artificially inflated the company’s sales numbers to make it appear to banks and their agents that the company’s chargeback ratios — a key metric used by banks to detect fraud — were within acceptable levels," according to the release. "Although this tactic amounted to the company effectively paying itself, Cotter used actual customer personal identifying information, without customers’ knowledge or consent, to disguise the transactions from banks by making them appear like legitimate sales."

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Cotter pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud.

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