By Randy Hutchison
President of the BBB
Reprinted from The Commercial Appeal
A check you wrote is cashed but not by the person you wrote it to. Or your account becomes overdrawn even though you know there should be enough funds to cover checks you’ve written or other withdrawals. These are signs that you may be a victim of check washing, a growing crime that experts say costs consumers, businesses, and financial institutions $815 million a year.
Check washing involves erasing the payee name and possibly the amount on a stolen check, adding a new payee and amount, and then fraudulently depositing or cashing it. The crooks may use simple household chemicals such as nail polish remover or rubbing alcohol to make the alteration. The fraud won’t be detected until the consumer or business reconciles the account and notices the alteration, the payee says the check was never received even though it was cashed, or the bank sends a notice that the account is overdrawn (perhaps after bouncing other payments).
The crooks may steal the checks from residential mailboxes or post office collection boxes using stolen or copied keys. A recent story out of Chicago described an alarming increase in mail carriers being robbed of master keys that can open mailboxes on the street and in building lobbies in an entire zip code.
These are examples of check washing from news stories:
Banks generally take the loss on altered checks, but recovering the money can be a time-consuming hassle for the victim.
To help protect yourself from check washing, deposit mail with checks at the post office rather than leaving it in your home mailbox with the red flag up. If you use a blue Post Office collection box, do so right before the last pickup.
The BBB offers these additional tips:
Many of these tips apply to any kind of mail to help you also avoid identity theft.