Westerville police warn to stop sending checks in mail due to ‘washing’ scheme
WESTERVILLE, Ohio (WCMH) — The Westerville Division of Police has warned residents to stop sending checks through the mail due to dozens of “check washing” cases being reported. A…
If they "wash" the ink off the checks, doesn't that also wash off the bank info and the lines? I use permanent ink. I pay bills by check through the mail, and I receive pay for one of my side hustles with checks through the mail.
More fear porn to get people to be all electronic.
Exactly. There is no comparison with the risks associated with "online."
No, I have had it happen to me twice. It's a real thing.
How do the criminals get a hold of the checks? From getting them out of a public mail box?
The number of fraudulent transactions from online activities is off the charts.
Personally I think someone at the post office has to have been involved. There was a rash of them for about 2 months on the NW Side. I had to make police reports and fill out a fraud affidavit. Also, a friend's son wrote a check for around 100 to renew his LLC and someone cashed it for 2400. My secretary wrote a check and mailed to a court reporter for $240 and they cashed it for $9999.00. That was on my business TRUST account which is pretty flush with cash because I need it to be. It took longer to get that money back because it was a business account not personal, and they don't have the same "customer protection" stuff LOL. They sell pens now that you can't "wash" with nail polish I guess.
very good point
I have had two check stolen and altered this way. They use nail polish to cover up the dollar amount and then write in a different dollar amount and payee and deposit the check electronically where any oddity may go unnoticed. The accounts I assume are set up online with a fake identity and the money stolen virtually immediately. I tried to get more information from the bank about how this scheme actually works and that's all I know. But it happened to me twice - once on a personal check and again on a business check - and I know several people that got hit here on the NW side of Chicago.
Documents that are printed by laserjet have a plastic dust fused to the paper fibers as their "ink". It is impervious to being removed with alcohol or other solvents. Yes, alcohol even dissolves "permanent" ink like Sharpies. It is used to clean whiteboards when people write on them with Sharpies by mistake.
An easy way to clean sharpie off a white board is to use a dry erase marker
Wouldn't paper be harder to remove permanent ink from than a slick white board surface? I don't know, just wondering.
No, just watched a 'Burn Notice' episode where they did this. Lol What's printed on the check remains after the acetone bath. And scotch tape over the signature preserves it. Dry it and you have a blank check.
https://www.uspis.gov/news/scam-article/check-washing
And you don't even need a paper check to purchase online. You can use the numbers on bottom of the check.
No, I have had it happen to me twice. It's a real thing.
Not once to me, and I've been writing checks for over 50 years. And if someone did that and tried to get thousands of dollars, they would have a bounced check on their hands, as I don't keep a ton of money in the checking account, only enough to pay bills.
YES you’re correct. Pushing us furthur towards their evil plan- I’ll take the check risk ! There are easier more thefts done on line .. I’ll use checks and real people, not self help check outs in the stores ! Damn they use to carry our grocerys out to our cars years ago , now they don’t even want to check us out !
This absolutely is happening. It has happened in my area in PA to people I personally know. The address your sending to is a dead giveaway. Mail addressed to utilities, tax officers rtc are likely going to contain a check.
They don't need to steal the check to steal from you. All they need is the numbers on the bottom of the check and your name and address on the top and they can steal from you like they can with your credit card numbers. So it's not even like you would know your numbers are recorded by a scammer.
The people who work in the bill centers and open the mail are often low level employees. You would never know if they took a pic of your check before they posted it as paid to your acct.
Would you mail a photo copy of your credit card in the mail? If no, then why would you think a check is safer?
If just seeing the info on the front of a check was enough to allow theft, there would have been millions of incidents in the past and the government and companies would never send checks. Of course you can forge a check from scratch, but you will eventually get caught. You can't duplicate the special paper or the microprinting or the watermarks.
Do you mean that I can just look at an income tax refund check and steal all my money back from the government? No.
Having my credit card number won't do you much good. You don't have the security code from the back.
I've been writing checks for over 50 years without it happening once, and I don't know a single person this has happened to. Perhaps you live in a hellhole. I live in the South.
What I am saying is have you ever been asked to enter the check routing numbers from the bottom of your check to make a payment online? People can buy tings with checks online. They can pay bills with checks on line. Which means they can use someone else's numbers to do that.
They steal from the account the check is written on....not to.
You don't have to believe me. I'm just telling you in recent years it is very easy for people to pay for things just by giving their checking acct/ routing numbers. Which means there are more criminals stealing those numbers.
I am in my mid 50s and I paid bills for years with checks. But I do think twice a out it now. We have big criminals and little criminals to fight. The banks don't really offer much protection for stolen check numbers like they do if it's a debit/credit card.
It's called ACH or e-Check payments. Look it up, you'll find plenty of info on it.
I'll continue with the checks. Some of the places I send payments to will not accept plastic at all, just cash or checks, and I can't mail cash.
Also, individuals can't pay me with plastic, as I have no way to receive it. I can only receive checks through the mail for payment.
There's never much money in my account, so someone would have to be very lucky not to bounce a fake check on my account.