Stop Check Fraud: Essential Tips to Safeguard Your Finances

Old habits are hard to break, especially for people who have done something a certain way all their lives. Like writing checks to pay bills or donate to a charity or worthy cause. Check writing is a slower, traditional (and definitely old-school) payment method, but it’s for the most part reliable. It isn’t, however, fully safe from criminals if a check falls into the wrong hands. And that seems to be happening more often these days. If someone you know is still using a checkbook to make payments or send money to others, you need to read this and share this information with them. This isn’t about getting them to stop writing checks but taking precautions to prevent check fraud. If a criminal can get their hands on someone’s personal check, they can alter the check using a variety of methods and direct the payment to themselves. They can alter the information on check amount, so, for example a $50 donation to a charity becomes a $500 payment to a total stranger. How does that happen? One method is called “check washing,” and it’s literally that. The criminal takes the stolen check, dunks it in a special solution that erases of the information that the account holder has written on the check. The crook then changes the name of the payee and the amount of the check. As you might already know, a check today can be deposited in someone’s account using a smartphone these days and the bank’s app. Swindlers don’t even have to go into a bank to try to cash or deposit a stolen check. This is a crime that is happening more frequently, and it’s important that anyone who writes a check is aware of the potential for check fraud. Especially those who primarily prefer to make payments by checks. Your parents/grandparents don’t have to stop writing checks or switch everything to electronic payments (that’s not reasonable to ask or expect); but you should encourage them to develop new check writing and check-depositing habits. (These tips are good for you too, for the occasional check you probably write yourself. As long as people are still writing checks and as long as scammers are aware of it, the problem is likely to stick around and continue to grow. Why? For two reasons: Keep in mind, it’s not just about someone’s age. Check writing is still common for people who don’t want to make every payment online. Millions of people still will write a check to pay their utility bills, credit card payments, or even pay their gardener or a contractor who does work around the house. Here is a list of ideas—a handful of simple, smart suggestions—for safeguarding the check-writing and check-paying processes that help reduce the chance of a criminal intercepting, stealing and forging a written check. Even the blue mailbox on the corner has some risk involved, although a lot less. Thieves will break into those two, even into those in front of a post office. Security professionals suggest that if you use a mailbox on the street that you make sure you’re in time for the next pickup time. Never leave a payment in a mailbox overnight, or over the weekend or holiday. The best bet is to drop off your envelopes (and payments) to be mailed right at the post office itself, inside. Although online banking and digital payments seem secure, there’s still a lot of fraud there too. Technology doesn’t eliminate fraud. In many ways, it facilitates it. Which is why many people prefer to make payments the old-fashioned way.  Yet, as this article has pointed out, writing checks isn’t inherently safer and things can still go wrong. However, by following the advice above, people can drastically reduce the possibility of 1) their checks falling into the wrong hands and 2) having a stolen check altered and eventually losing money. Chris Parker, CEO of WhatIsMyIPAddress.com, also hosts the Easy Prey podcast, where he talks to experts on important topics, from scams and fraud, to living with today’s technology. Sign up to follow his podcast.