I was a victim of check fraud several years ago. I got my money back from the Bank after about eight hours of my time over the course of six months. I seldom use checks now and if I do I mail from inside the post office. Just yesterday USPS removed the blue boxes from the drive through forcing you to go inside. Here is the WSJ story:

Writing a personal check is among the most basic ways to pay the bills. It is also becoming riskier.

Paper checks are on the decline, but are still widely used. Americans sent out 11.2 billion checks in 2021, down 7.2% from 2018, according to the Federal Reserve. Checks remain a common method to make payments for rent, utilities, charitable donations, taxes and fees.



The risks of writing a check, however, are heightened as a result of higher levels of check fraud. More scammers are targeting mailboxes to snatch checks and then use chemicals to lift the ink so that new amounts and recipients can be written in.

This low-tech crime is causing some older people, small-business owners as well as those who don’t have a bank but prefer to cash paper checks to wonder whether they should still make payments via paper checks. Security analysts and fraud specialists say the rise of this fraud should give these people pause. For many transactions, digital payments offer better consumer protections.

“Checks have very few security features and are very easy to alter or counterfeit,” said Naftali Harris, chief executive of Sentilink, a fraud-protection company in San Francisco.

Banks filed 680,000 check-fraud reports in 2022, according to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, or FinCEN, part of the Treasury Department, nearly double the 350,000 fraud reports filed in 2021. In February, FinCEN issued an alert in collaboration with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the law-enforcement arm of the postal service, about the rise in check fraud.

Here’s what to consider before making payments by check, and ways to improve the security of your payments.

Limit the number of checks you write
Today, swindlers can deposit stolen checks on their phones without having to go to a bank. They can also duplicate and sell the stolen checks to third-party criminals.



If you’re uneasy about putting money into banks after failures at Silicon Valley Bank and Signature, WSJ’s Imani Moise explains there are other places to stash your cash. Photo: Storyblocks
The simplest way to protect yourself is to keep the number of checks you write to a minimum, said David Maimon, a professor at Georgia State University and the director of its Evidence-Based Cybersecurity Research Group.

At the very least, try to send checks only to people you know. Mailing a check to friends and family is usually safer than sending one to a stranger, said Alicia Valentine, assistant vice president and cash-management officer at Florence Bank, which serves customers throughout western Massachusetts.

For person-to-person payments, consider paperless options such as Zelle, Cash App or Venmo, Valentine suggested.

Watch for unusual transactions

Keeping an eye on your bank account isn’t just good for budgeting, it can also help you spot any suspicious activity as soon as possible.

“People should go online and look at their bank account every single day,” said Greg Litster, president of SAFEChecks, a check-manufacturing company based in California.



Since banks have to investigate every case, victims can wait as long as seven months to be reimbursed for a fraudulent check. Pay close attention around holidays such as Christmas, Memorial Day or Thanksgiving when banks are closed. These are the times when criminal activity creeps up since most people aren’t keeping track of their spending, and if they do notice anything, they most likely won’t be able to report it to the bank until after the holiday, Litster said.

Check-fraud activity also tends to increase during tax season when people are most likely to be writing or mailing checks to the state or federal government, Maimon said. Turn on notifications for when withdrawals are made from your account so that you can be alerted via email or text every time that happens.

Since your checks contain personal information such as routing and account numbers, as well as your home address, they should be secured out of public view.

“People have become careless with how they preserve their checkbook,” said Hubert Klein, a fraud-investigations specialist at Eisner Advisory Group, a New York-based financial advisory firm. Leaving your checkbook out in the open can be as dangerous as leaving out your social-security card, he said.

Use pens with gel ink
The type of pen you use to write your checks matters. Fraud specialists recommend opting for blue or black gel-ink pens and spelling everything out—from the name or title of the recipient to the dollar amount. Thanks to its chemical composition, gel ink, which is a little thicker than that used in a regular ballpoint pen, is permanent and harder to remove.

“Those are good because they actually seep into the paper a little bit so they are virtually impossible to erase without leaving physical marks that somebody altered the check,” Klein said.



People tend to write checks in a rush, Klein said. He suggests slowing down and making sure everything on the check is complete, which includes filling out the memo line and writing out what the check is for.

“Never write a check payable to cash,” said Roxann Cooke, consumer-banking managing director at JPMorgan Chase.

Send checks directly from the post office
The worst thing to do is to leave the check you have written in the mailbox in front of your house with the red flag up, fraud-prevention experts say. Be wary of simply dropping a check into a blue USPS box, as swindlers have been attacking mail carriers and stealing their keys to get into big blue drop boxes.

To better protect your checks, seal them in windowless envelopes so others can’t see what is inside, Litster said. Criminals can tell which one is a check and which isn’t through the clear section of the envelope.

“It is a signal in the mailing food chain to ‘steal me,’” Litster said.

Hand deliver any checks to your local USPS location and give it to a worker there, Valentine said. But when you can, it is always best to hand-deliver your check directly to the payee.


link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/c...money-21e6d43?page=1

The simplest solution to avoid being the victim of check fraud is to simply never use personal checks. It's a relic left over from a bygone era.

In today's world of multitudes of various electronic payment systems, robust credit card fraud protection, and online banking bill pay, there's zero reason to continue writing out paper checks.

Even old-fashioned businesses and skilled tradesmen that don't accept cards or electronic payments will still take cash. Most prefer it, in fact.

Heck, even most of the bigger companies offering refunds or rebates have nearly stopped issuing them in the form of checks, choosing to do it via electronic Venmo/Paypal/Zelle payments or prepaid Visa cards.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
The simplest solution to avoid being the victim of check fraud is to simply never use checks.

In today's world of multitudes of various electronic payment systems, robust credit card consumer protection, and online banking bill pay, there's zero reason to continue using paper checks.

Even old-fashioned businesses and skilled tradesmen that don't accept cards or electronic payments will still take cash. Most prefer it, in fact.

Heck, even companies offering refunds or rebates have nearly stopped issuing checks, choosing to do it via electronic Venmo/Paypal/Zelle payments or prepaid Visa cards.

Except now most places are now charging 3% or 4% per transaction for electronic transactions of any sort especially credit cards.

I used to write no checks now I am up to at least 4 a month because of the new electronic transaction fees.
Most are medical related and billing is done out of state.

You could still make those medical payments via your bank's bill pay system, and avoid both writing personal checks or paying processing fees.

It's effectively like an electronic version of going to your bank, getting a cashier's check from the teller, and then putting it in the mail. Except you don't have to physically go to the bank, the bank provides the postage and envelope, and you have an immediate electronic record of the transaction available in perpetuity.

Plus, it posts immediately upon the date you specify for the payment, so you don't have to wonder when the check will hit or float the check funds for days/weeks/months in the meantime.

And you can do it all with a few clicks while sitting on the couch in your underwear.

You can even use bill pay to set up recurring payment schedules, for stuff that occurs weekly/monthly/quarterly/whatever for the same amount. For example, a few clicks and your mortgage is scheduled to be paid on the third Friday of every month for the next year, or your car payment is scheduled the first payday of each month for the next 36 months, etc.

How do you pay the IRS?? I do not trust them to deal with online bill pay??

The US is pretty much the only country left using paper checks like we do, IIRC the Europeans phased them out like 20-25 years ago and laugh at us for being so stuck in the past.

We barely use them any longer, I think the final regular check we’d have to write was a quarterly borough water/sewer bill but even that has gone to online payment.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
How do you pay the IRS?? I do not trust them to deal with online bill pay??

You don't trust the IRS to accept a cashier's check with your information on it mailed from your bank, but yet you trust them to accept a personal check with your information on it mailed from your home?

That makes no sense.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
The US is pretty much the only country left using paper checks like we do, IIRC the Europeans phased them out like 20-25 years ago and laugh at us for being so stuck in the past.

Much like they did while we clung to the wildly unsecure chipless signature-only credit and debit cards for too many years.

Maybe we could put the fraud mf’ers in prison where they belong.

Yes, perhaps it’s dated. But ‘modern systems’ seem to have issues as well. And the problem isn’t the system but the criminals and the lack of accountability.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
The US is pretty much the only country left using paper checks like we do, IIRC the Europeans phased them out like 20-25 years ago and laugh at us for being so stuck in the past.

We barely use them any longer, I think the final regular check we’d have to write was a quarterly borough water/sewer bill but even that has gone to online payment.

Europe hasn't entirely stopped using paper checks. France's use is anywhere from 23 - 10% that of the United States, depending on the historical year. The most number of checks drafted in that country in the last twenty years occurred in 2019.

https://www.statista.com/stati...-with-checks-europe/

BTW, non-erasable pen ink goes a long way. That being said, I pay most of my bills electronically.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
You could still make those medical payments via your bank's bill pay system, and avoid both writing personal checks or paying processing fees.

It’s still a physical check being mailed just from a different address and the fraud possibility is just the same.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
Maybe we could put the fraud mf’ers in prison where they belong.

Yes, perhaps it’s dated. But ‘modern systems’ seem to have issues as well. And the problem isn’t the system but the criminals and the lack of accountability.

I agree with konata88 to an extent. Check fraud is done by people in the United States who have the wherewithal to get a job. If you have enough intelligence to do check fraud then you have enough intelligence to get a job.

Fraud using electronic payment methods can originate outside the United States. But the answer to that lies in the accountability. If a county doesn't want to deal with it then we just block the internet access to the U.S. And if they decide to hide their origin through a VPN, then we block the access of the country that is allowing the criminals to route through to the U.S.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:
It’s still a physical check being mailed just from a different address and the fraud possibility is just the same.

It's a bank check, not a personal check. Much less likely to have to deal with fraud. And if there's any fraud, it's on the bank to deal with, not on you.

Think of it like debit vs. credit card fraud. Debit card fraud, you have to deal with the hassle because it's your money, and it might be a while before you get your money back. Credit card fraud, it's on the credit card company to deal with because it's their money, and you don't have to pay for it.

Similar with personal check vs. bank check.

Cashiers checks are problematic. First you have to pay for it, then there is an acceptance problem. I paid for a cashiers check and the Money Market fund would not accept it because it could be fraudulent. Time on the phone revealed that it had to do with governmental regulations. They would accept it for a second deposit, not the first.

quote:

You don't trust the IRS to accept a cashier's check with your information on it mailed from your bank, but yet you trust them to accept a personal check with your information on it mailed from your home?

That makes no sense.

^^^^^^
Where did you get that.??? My CPA explained the IRS always accepts money. I have had problems with online bill pay and I always pay bills from inside the local post office.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Cashiers checks are problematic. First you have to pay for it

You don't have to pay for bill pay bank checks. Well, not outright... Online bill pay is a service that most banks offer to their customers, which like all bank services is subsidized by the money the bank is making off you and your accounts. There's no such thing as a free lunch, but it doesn't have a specific fee like each individual cashier's check you get from a teller would. (So if we're being pedantic, it's more accurate to say that it's an "included service at no additional cost" rather than it's "free", but for all intents and purposes, online bill pay is free.)

It's like a cashier's check in that it's being drawn from and guaranteed by the bank's funds, after they deduct the money out of your account, rather than being drawn from and backed by your personal account like a personal check. But it's not exactly like a cashier's check you'd go get from a teller, where you have to pay a fee for each check. That's one of the reasons it's way better than a traditional cashier's check, with the other being that you don't have to go in person to a teller to get it done or deal with any of the mailing aspects.

Look, I get it. You don't understand online bill pay, and what you don't understand is naturally going to be scary/bad. But it truly is a way better option for situations that require a mailed physical check than writing out and mailing your own personal checks, both from a convenience standpoint as well as a security/fraud standpoint.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:

Cashiers checks are problematic. First you have to pay for it

I have never had to pay a fee for a cashier's check at any bank or credit union that I have used, neither personal nor business account. Every checking account that I have had, has always included cashier's checks with no fees.

I just bought a car a month or two ago, the credit union printed a no-fee cashier's check for me, payable to the dealer.

Whereas my bank charges $15 apiece for cashier's checks from a teller.

But again, zero fee for a bill pay bank check.

No idea why getting a bank check in person would cost such a hefty fee, while getting a practically identical bank check through their online portal would be free. Even if they tacked on a "teller fee" or whatever for privilege of in-person processing, it shouldn't be anywhere near $15 each. Not to mention that they're also having to foot the additional cost of postage and envelopes for the online bill pay bank checks.

*shrug* Banks... who knows.

Until we make banks responsible for the losses on check cashing, this will continue. Used to be, any check over $50-100 was held for 5 days or until it cleared. Now, routinely banks cash checks for $3k-$5,000.

Scammers come into town for a couple days, they hit some mail boxes, make a couple dozen checks, and find where the homeless are. They then find who has an ID and they will buy them a meal, maybe a new pair of shoes and give them $100. They will then go bank to bank having the homeless guy cash $2500 checks at each branch.

When the banks figure out they’ve been taken, the suspects are long gone. Investigators locate the homeless guy and hook him up, but he’s just the patsy. The car is often a rental who was rented by……… a homeless guy in Atlanta, Memphis, etc.

(I share an office with financial crimes so I hear about this often)

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

my bank charges $15 apiece for cashier's checks

WOW! I have never paid a fee for these.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:


Except now most places are now charging 3% or 4% per transaction for electronic transactions of any sort especially credit cards.

I used to write no checks now I am up to at least 4 a month because of the new electronic transaction fees.
Most are medical related and billing is done out of state.

When I try to pay electronically and there's a charge for using a credit card, I do an ACH (I think that's the term for electronic bank checks) where I enter my bank's routing number and my checking account.

But I do use checks still like once a month but never more than two. I have two vendors that don't take credit cards.