By Brian Trompeter
Call them Luddites, troglodytes, sticks-in-the-mud, old-fashioned or just plain stubborn: About 15 percent of Americans still write paper checks to pay for bills and purchases.
“Paper checks are easily counterfeited,” said Cheryl Urban, vice president of business banking for United Bank. “Getting the routing information is easier than ever.”
Urban and fellow United Bank vice president Akram Aleahmad outlined proliferating check-fraud schemes and suggested methods to thwart – or at least mitigate – them during the Vienna Business Association’s Jan. 18 luncheon.
“The bad actors are getting very sophisticated,” Urban said.
Check fraud takes many forms. Criminals sometimes wash checks with acid and make them out to different people so as to drain victims’ checking accounts.
Other times, fraudsters steal checks from mail boxes, sometimes using keys they have stolen from postal workers at gunpoint, Urban said.
It may be weeks, months, even years before thieves use stolen information to tamper with people’s accounts, Urban said.
“The bad actors are super patient,” she said. “They take their time.”
And don’t expect financial institutions to flag suspicious items. Banks do not verify with account holders most checks worth less than $2,500, Urban said.
Financial companies solved some fraud problems by introducing chips on debit and credit cards, but as with pressure on one side of a balloon, the scam artists put more focus on check fraud, Urban said. As a result, 51 percent now bank fraud consists of check counterfeiting and washing.
Checks have been in circulation for centuries. People began using them during the Crusades, before the advent of paper money, Urban said. The Dutch came up with modern check processing during the 1600s, she added.
“Checks can be anything – a rock, for example – as long as they have specific information,” she said.
Check fraud only has been a federal crime since 1934, with felony charges levied in cases where the amount stolen exceeds $500, she said.
Urban urged people to write checks using pens with magnetic ink and use more electronic platforms for making payments.
“Don’t put personal checks in your mailbox,” she recommended. “Go directly to the post office and use a locked mailbox at home. Double-authenticate your books.”
Debit cards offer fewer protections than credit cards, said Urban, who suggested making payments with the latter.
Rich Irons, a Vienna Business Association member who works at Burke & Herbert Bank, said businesses have fewer rights than consumers and less time to reconcile their accounts.
Daniel Adamson, who also works at Burke & Herbert Bank, recommended that customers have store or restaurant employees process transactions on the spot.
Adamson once was notified by his bank that a suspicious charge had been made on his card shortly after he ate at a restaurant. Adamson later went back to the same eatery and was served by the same waitress, who went back into the kitchen with his credit card when he paid.
Adamson followed the waitress and caught her using a smartphone to photograph his card’s information, which then would be sold to an unauthorized user. The restaurant promptly fired her, he said.
“We are our own best defense” against check fraud, Urban said.
