All across the country, criminals are conducting shopping sprees and pocketing cash to the tune of an estimated $815 Million a year. Think about that number for a minute, $815 Million Dollars… These criminals are finding it easy and highly profitable to do this by something called check washing.
Here is how it works. You are sitting at home, doing your monthly bills. Making out check after check to this company and that company. Car payment $350, House payment $1000, Medical bill $200, Gas bill $85, you have written all your checks and put them in their envelopes and they are ready to go. The next morning, you put them in your mailbox and off to work you go.
Latter in the month, your bank statement arrives and you check it over. There is check #1234 written for $350 car payment, check # 1235 for $1000 House payment etc. Looks like all the checks have cleared. A couple of weeks later you start getting phone calls. Mr. Smith, we have not received your car payment, Mr. Smith, your house payment has not arrived, this is the Gas Company and we have not received your payment. In a panic, you check over your bank statement and all those checks have been cashed, why are they saying they have not been paid? You go to the bank and get copies of the cancelled checks. Then it hits you. Check #1234 was written for $350 to make a car payment, but now you see the check has been altered and the loan company name has been removed, and changed to Cash.
What happened? Your checks have been washed. When you put them in the mailbox for your Mail Carrier to pick up, they were stolen. The check washers then use chemicals (a process I will not describe here) to remove the name of the payee and replace it with where they want to use it. Since the amount has not been changed, and since most banks today do not return the checks with your statements, you were unaware it occurred. All you knew was you wrote check number so and so for $200 and that is what your statement showed. It is that easy. It is like giving a blank check to thieves.
How can you prevent it? There are three simple steps you can take to help prevent this from happening to you.
One: Always mail your payments from a Post Office. Never mail them from your home mailbox. They are an easy target for check washers to steal.
Two: Use gel pens or fine line permanent markers to write your checks. Gel ink is more difficult to wash off. Ballpoint pens and felt tip pens are by far the easiest to remove.
Three: Use checks that are designed to change colors when chemicals are put on them. They cost a little more, and in some locations are difficult to find, but make check washing much more difficult.
These simple steps can reduce the chances of you becoming a victim of this crime. It is a crime of opportunity, by reducing the opportunity, you reduce your chances of being a victim.
