The company published a pamphlet in 1719, setting out its practice. The procedure was that a borrower took goods to one of the corporation's warehouses and signed a bill of sale. The warehouse keeper valued the pledge and he and an assistant signed a certificate. This was passed to the bookkeeper for entering in the corporation's accounts, and then to the cashier who paid the borrower his loan. Both the warehouse keeper and the cashier were required to give security, and there were surveyors of warehouses to act as a check on the warehousekeepers. Furthermore, the books were signed every night. Unredeemed pledges could be sold after a year. The borrower had not only to pay lawful interest (five percent) but also fees of a similar amount, so that the company was actually receiving considerably more than "lawful interest". These systems should have been sufficient to prevent fraud, but in the late 1720s, compliance with the procedure became lax, opening the way to fraud on a massive scale.