The information provided on this website does not, and is not intended to, act as legal, financial or credit advice; instead, it is for general informational purposes only. Information on this website may not be current. This website may contain links to other third-party websites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser; we do not recommend or endorse the contents of any third-party sites. Readers of this website should contact their attorney, accountant or credit counselor to obtain advice with respect to their particular situation. No reader, user, or browser of this site should act or not act on the basis of information on this site. Always seek personal legal, financial or credit advice for your relevant jurisdiction. Only your individual attorney or advisor can provide assurances that the information contained herein – and your interpretation of it – is applicable or appropriate to your particular situation. Use of, and access to, this website or any of the links or resources contained within the site do not create an attorney-client or fiduciary relationship between the reader, user, or browser and website owner, authors, contributors, contributing firms, or their respective employers.
Credit.com receives compensation for the financial products and services advertised on this site if our users apply for and sign up for any of them. Compensation is not a factor in the substantive evaluation of any product.
Scammers don’t need to be master hackers to bust into your bank account. A pen and paper can be enough — especially if the paper comes from a lost or stolen checkbook.
Cyber crimes may rule the headlines, but old-school scams are making a comeback — and some of them never really went away. Check fraud, for example, is one of the oldest forms of payment fraud and one of the most persistent. About 87 percent of financial professionals said their companies experienced check fraud, according to the 2013 Payments Fraud and Control survey.
“One of the simplest and most prevalent ways to commit financial crime, to steal money, is to commit some form of check fraud,” said James Freis Jr., former director of FinCEN, an agency of the Treasury Department.
Check fraud continues to be a problem for a number of reasons. Billions of checks are processed every year, making it challenging to do a review of each check to prevent fraud. Plus, criminals now have easy access to basic desktop publishing tools, increasing their chances of success.
Check fraud was the last thing on William Barker’s mind when he reviewed his bank account balance to make sure his monthly retirement check had been deposited. It had arrived safely, but he noticed something else: A check for $4,500 had been cashed. It bore his wife’s signature and a note that read “1984 motor home.”
There was just one problem: Barker and his wife didn’t buy a 1984 motor home.
When the doors of his bank opened that morning, Barker was there to dispute the transaction and begin the tedious process of recovering his money.
“For us, $4,500 is a lot of money,” he said. “We’ve always been real vigilant about our finances, so this was quite a blow.”
Fortunately, Barker’s home insurance policy provided him with identity management services at no cost, and Barker got some help from a fraud investigator, who made sure he followed these steps to help protect his credit:
Barker’s bank ultimately restored the funds to his account, but he and his wife are still on guard for suspicious activity on all their accounts.
Here are some tips for consumers to protect themselves against check fraud.
Barker has taken it one step further. “If you can avoid it, don’t use checks at all,” said Barker, who now uses debit cards instead of checks. “It’s just not worth it.”
Image: iStockphoto
October 19, 2023
Identity Theft and Scams
May 17, 2022
Identity Theft and Scams
May 20, 2021
Identity Theft and Scams