Check Fraud - Avoid Check Washing Schemes
Michael Russell asked:
Handing someone a blank check doesn’t sound like the smartest thing to do. However, that may be just what you’re doing when you pay your bills every month. You’re probably saying, “I would never send anyone a blank check. That’s absurd!†It’s easier than you think to turn your mortgage payment into a blank check. It’s just one way to commit check fraud. Criminals are “washing†checks in order to fund their dishonest shopping sprees.
Check washing involves taking a check that has already been written, “washing†it with a chemical solvent and rewriting the check so that a criminal can reuse it. Most of the time, they will only change the recipient name. Then when you check your bank statement, you see that your check went through and the amount matches. Think about that for a minute; $300 for your car payment, $1000 for your mortgage, $200 for insurance. It adds up quickly! It’s only when you start getting notices from debtors that you may discover that the checks you’ve written were stolen. By then, weeks or months may have passed. You may have lost thousands of dollars. Just imagine if a criminal rewrites the check for even more than you wrote it for!
The most common place for a criminal to get a check to wash is from your mailbox. And you are probably letting him know it’s there! That little red flag you put up when you want the mail carrier to pick up your mail also alerts criminals that there may be something worthwhile in your mailbox. If you put your bill payments in your mailbox and leave for work, it may be hours before the mail carrier comes to pick them up. That’s an abundant opportunity for someone with the worst intentions to steal your outgoing mail. In the amount of time it takes you to check your mail, a thief could easily steal it and you would be out thousands of dollars!
So how do you protect yourself? The easiest way is to simply drop your mail off at the post office or a postal service mail box. Some apartment complexes have locked mail drops where you can leave your outgoing mail. Basically, you want to make sure your mail is secure, leaving as little opportunity for someone to steal it as possible. Another way to avoid check washing is to change the pen you use. Your standard ballpoint pen is probably the easiest to wash. Felt tip and roller-ball pens are also fairly easy to wash off. Many tests have shown that gel pens are the hardest to wash off. Now you can even find permanent markers with tips fine enough to write a check with. Finally, many checks are now printed on chemically sensitive paper that will discolor when chemicals are used on them, so make sure your checks are printed on this paper.
So, help stop “washing†to keep your bank account safe. Use ink that cannot be “washedâ€. Use checks that will react with the chemicals used to wash checks and don’t leave your checks in your mailbox at home. Take them to the post office. These simple tips will help to protect you from check washing and the headaches it can bring.
Handing someone a blank check doesn’t sound like the smartest thing to do. However, that may be just what you’re doing when you pay your bills every month. You’re probably saying, “I would never send anyone a blank check. That’s absurd!†It’s easier than you think to turn your mortgage payment into a blank check. It’s just one way to commit check fraud. Criminals are “washing†checks in order to fund their dishonest shopping sprees.
Check washing involves taking a check that has already been written, “washing†it with a chemical solvent and rewriting the check so that a criminal can reuse it. Most of the time, they will only change the recipient name. Then when you check your bank statement, you see that your check went through and the amount matches. Think about that for a minute; $300 for your car payment, $1000 for your mortgage, $200 for insurance. It adds up quickly! It’s only when you start getting notices from debtors that you may discover that the checks you’ve written were stolen. By then, weeks or months may have passed. You may have lost thousands of dollars. Just imagine if a criminal rewrites the check for even more than you wrote it for!
The most common place for a criminal to get a check to wash is from your mailbox. And you are probably letting him know it’s there! That little red flag you put up when you want the mail carrier to pick up your mail also alerts criminals that there may be something worthwhile in your mailbox. If you put your bill payments in your mailbox and leave for work, it may be hours before the mail carrier comes to pick them up. That’s an abundant opportunity for someone with the worst intentions to steal your outgoing mail. In the amount of time it takes you to check your mail, a thief could easily steal it and you would be out thousands of dollars!
So how do you protect yourself? The easiest way is to simply drop your mail off at the post office or a postal service mail box. Some apartment complexes have locked mail drops where you can leave your outgoing mail. Basically, you want to make sure your mail is secure, leaving as little opportunity for someone to steal it as possible. Another way to avoid check washing is to change the pen you use. Your standard ballpoint pen is probably the easiest to wash. Felt tip and roller-ball pens are also fairly easy to wash off. Many tests have shown that gel pens are the hardest to wash off. Now you can even find permanent markers with tips fine enough to write a check with. Finally, many checks are now printed on chemically sensitive paper that will discolor when chemicals are used on them, so make sure your checks are printed on this paper.
So, help stop “washing†to keep your bank account safe. Use ink that cannot be “washedâ€. Use checks that will react with the chemicals used to wash checks and don’t leave your checks in your mailbox at home. Take them to the post office. These simple tips will help to protect you from check washing and the headaches it can bring.