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Ink It Right: How to Prevent Check Fraud
Posted: July 24, 2023
Last month, the USPS issued a warning and here’s the bottom line: don’t put checks in the mailbox. According to the article, mail theft, including both letter carrier robbery and high volume mail theft incidents from blue collection boxes, has dramatically increased.
So, what happens next when a check is stolen? Most likely, it’s about to go through the wash.
What is check washing?
When a check is washed, chemicals are used to carefully bleach the ink to erase certain elements of the check, which may include the payee name and even the amount that you wrote. Criminals (or their mules) will then cash the check. Your personal information, including your account number, may be sold on the dark web or used to print more counterfeit checks.
Ink color matters!
Believe it or not, the color of ink and type of pen you use could play a part in whether or not your check can be successfully washed. Blue ink from standard ballpoint pens is the most vulnerable to chemical stripping, so when possible, use a black ink pen. For the best protection, use a black ink gel pen. Gel ink resists chemical stripping and bonds well with the paper, so bleaching might be more obvious and the check fraud easier to detect.
Embassy SAFE Tip! Keep your bank information out of the mailbox where thieves can find it by enrolling in complementary paperless statements. Here’s how: Electronic Statements
We’re Here to Help
Get ahead of the bad guys with the many fraud prevention tools offered by Embassy Bank, including: