My check was among the hundreds stolen daily. Nobody wants to do anything.
By Gerard Leval, The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 29, 2024
For the second time in three years, my wife and I have been the victims of banking fraud—more specifically, check tampering, sometimes called check washing…
The Postal Service is investigating but thus far has only warned us not to send checks through the mail because, as they informed us, hundreds of checks are stolen each day… [end quote]
…
How it works: Crooks steal checks left in mailboxes or remove mail deposited in U.S. Postal Service collection boxes by using keys stolen from mail carriers or by fishing them out with string and something sticky — like rodent glue traps or a glue-covered bottle. Using cheap chemicals like bleach or acetone (usually bought as nail polish remover), they erase the payee name and amount, leaving the signature intact. After drying, checks are rewritten for more money and deposited or cashed at banks, check-cashing businesses or stores that offer check-cashing services… [end quote]
This AARP article has 6 ways to prevent check washing fraud. The most important is to pay online and never use checks. If you must write a check, use a gel pen which uses Sharpie-type ink that soaks into the paper. (Blow on it until it’s dry because it tends to smear when wet.) Drop it off inside the post office’s mail slot which is next to impossible to fish, not an outside mail box.
Which is why I never leave anything with a check in a mailbox overnight. I drop it in the box at the post office, a couple hours before pickup time, or I take it inside the post office and deposit it through the mail slot in the wall.
…and December 31 is a perfect time to ring out the old ( = assuming a more or less honest public and the robust safety of analog systems) and ring in the new ( = assuming bad actors appearing anywhere and that analog systems are creaky and increasingly impossible to secure in comparison to digital… ???!).
Hmmm. But here in most of Mexico the postal system became so hopelessly unable to cope and so corrupt that it has been next to useless for over centuries. The lack of functioning rural post offices often appears on lists of how Mexico’s middle class faced big challenges in surviving let alone thriving until recently.
Just today, I thought of how newspapers were sold, a mere 60 years ago: an open bin of papers, with a little metal box for the customer to drop a coin in, for the newspaper he took from the open bin.
True, but many businesses (and govt) are moving to online payment systems. Why? Less expensive for them to set up, maintain, and secure payments happen very quickly. No float because no checks.
On line payment means payment is received as electronic data. Paper check requires someone to open mail and type in data. On line payment should be more efficient all around.
I can pay property taxes in my area on line but service fee is $30.
Property tax is on of the very few checks I write. I take it to the P.O. however. The fee on vehicle regitration is only a couple of bucks, so I pay online but I resent it greatly.
If i mailed my property tax check, it would cost me a stamp. The Township hall is only a mile farther down the road than the post office. So I mosey up to the window, hand the clerk my check, she stamps my bill “paid”.
I used to renew my car registration and driver’s license on line. Then the state started charging a service fee for credit card transactions, but they don’t disclose how much the fee is up front. So, since they started charging a fee, I have gone back to mailing in a paper check, or driving up to the office to pay in person, with a check. The office is only a couple miles from my home, and I can combine that trip with other destinations in that area.
They are, but rapidly declining. The oddest thing in the USA is that many checks, when received, are instantly converted into an ACH by simply taking a photo of the check and having a device determine the routing and account number to debit from. For example, I received a check last week, took a photo of it in my banks app, and voila it was converted to ACH and deposited.
Yes, and because checks are printed with machine readable magnetic ink, photo deposits remove a safety feature that would otherwise detect a photocopied check.
Yes, certainly. I have a friend who refuses to do any online transactions. I used to point out to him that there is more opportunity for both fraud and error writing checks, but he is stuck in his ways. He’s not alone.
The only reason I write a check these days (usually 2 or 3 a year) is because an online processing fee is exorbitant. I see it otherwise as a waste of time (and stamps).