Check Washing (warning to all)

[Fluffypants]

Lately, it seems, that check washing has become a huge problem. If you don't know what check washing is, it is when people use chemicals to remove the ink from checks and then write in themselves as the payee. They have criminal groups infiltrating post offices and stealing anything that looks like a bill payment and even people wandering around neighborhoods looking for mailboxes with their flags up or even stealing directly from bank deposit boxes.

In my line of work we recently have seen a rash of it with companies sending us cancelled copies of checks with names other than ours on them. I just wanted to make this post as a warning to everyone to be careful and follow the suggestions in this article.

https://www.investigatetv.com/2024/01/25/check-washing-scams-still-rise/

My personal suggestion to you all is stop sending checks in by mail and just use online bill pay either through your bank or your vendors.

I know this isn't the normal I hate your side type post and it probably is questionable as being in the Federal Politics section but it is a real issue.

[CrakHoBarbie]

2 minutes ago, Fluffypants said:

Lately, it seems, that check washing has become a huge problem. If you don't know what check washing is, it is when people use chemicals to remove the ink from checks and then write in themselves as the payee. They have criminal groups infiltrating post offices and stealing anything that looks like a bill payment and even people wandering around neighborhoods looking for mailboxes with their flags up or even stealing directly from bank deposit boxes.

In my line of work we recently have seen a rash of it with companies sending us cancelled copies of checks with names other than ours on them. I just wanted to make this post as a warning to everyone to be careful and follow the suggestions in this article.

https://www.investigatetv.com/2024/01/25/check-washing-scams-still-rise/

My personal suggestion to you all is stop sending checks in by mail and just use online bill pay either through your bank or your vendors.

I know this isn't the normal I hate your side type post and it probably is questionable as being in the Federal Politics section but it is a real issue.

I just don't write checks. Of course, paying electronically has its problems as well.

Edited February 24 by CrakHoBarbie

[Fluffypants]

7 minutes ago, CrakHoBarbie said:

People still use checks?

Oh yeah, maybe not as common among the rank and file people, even though I do see a check book come out every so often at the grocery store. It is common amongst companies, our system that pays bills offer companies 3 ways to get paid, Virtual Credit Card, ACH or paper check and most choose paper check because that is the only one that doesn't incur fees. Virtual Credit Cards the most fees but is almost instant payment, ACH takes a day or two but has less fees and paper checks are completely free and takes however long it takes for the post office to deliver them.

Lately it seems it takes longer than it took during the days of the pony express. We got invoice posted to our system after they drafted the account and I saw that the invoice date was December 28th and the date it came in was Jan 26th. It took so long to come in that it was already late when we got the bill, luckily for us we set up auto draft for utilities.

Edited February 24 by Fluffypants

[Aristides]

I've noticed that using cheques is far more common in the US than Canada. The US was very late to the party when it came to using chipped cards. Canada was using them for several years before the US and Europe was using them before Canada.

 

Many businesses and individuals will only accept payment by e transfer now.

Edited February 24 by Aristides

[Fluffypants]

18 minutes ago, Aristides said:

I've noticed that using cheques is far more common in the US than Canada. The US was very late to the party when it came to using chipped cards. Canada was using them for several years before the US and Europe was using them before Canada.

 

Many businesses and individuals will only accept payment by e transfer now.

Some of this depends on the type of business transaction.

For instance I am in Property Management, so home owners and renters can link their payments directly to their account but when a property gets closed on, we have to receive the payment and papers to close the old account and open a new account and with us having 100s of these a day there is no way to link those payments to an account, all we would have is a mess of deposits going all over the place and us having to figure out what deposit goes to where.

So we require checks and title companies want to send them to us the cheapest way possible so they send them by mail which is where they are getting intercepted and washed.

Luckily for our clients we have fraud protection where every day we upload what checks we have cut for the day and what ach payments we have made so if anything comes in wonky like if we sent a check to John Smith for a 1000 dollars and we get a deposit for a Marge Jones for 1000 dollars our bank flags it and says you never said you sent this check out let us know if you want us to pay it and if we reject it or if we don't give our decision the check gets returned.

 

Edited February 24 by Fluffypants

[herbie]

To paraphrase an old Shake & Bake TV commercial:

I remember cheques....

10 years ago our company had 75% of our business customers paying online. $1 stamp to mail the invoice, $1 stamp for them to mail the cheque. WTF for?

[Moonlight Graham]

What's a cheque?

[Hodad]

I've been a victim of check washing. It sucks!

Actually, I've accidentally left all sorts of things in my pockets on laundry day. Some come out clean and intact, while others are decidedly worse for wear.