Check Washing

What is Check Washing?

Check washing is the process of taking a completed check - say written by you to the electric company for $200, and using common chemicals, like bleach or acetone, to erase details from the check (this takes only a few minutes and leaves no easily discernible traces), then rewriting the check.

The cautious check thief/washer will wash out just the payee name on a check and then write in their own name, take it to your bank with an assumed identity and cash the check. Then they’re off to spend your money, usually days before you even know you’ve been robbed. This leaves the person who wrote the check unaware of the theft until the person to whom the check was originally written calls you asking where their money is. You tell them it was cashed and you can prove it, but when you look at the copy of the check, you find that it seems to have been written, not to the person you wrote it out to, but someone you’ve never heard of before.

The more ambitious criminal will not only erase the payee, but also the amounts written on the check, so instead of $200 being cashed out of your account for the electric bill, you will find that perhaps $1,000 was cashed out to someone you don’t know. These thieves often form rings and drive around neighborhoods all day (usually in the early morning after you’ve gone to work), checking mailboxes for outgoing mail thanks to the little red flags that are put up to notify the postal worker that there is mail to be taken.

How to Protect Yourself From Check Washing

In virtually all cases, check washers get their checks right out of their victim’s mailbox in front of their house. So the best ways to protect yourself from becoming a victim of this crime are:

• Never leave your outgoing mail/bill payments in your mailbox unless it has a lock on it.
• Take your bill payments with you to work and mail them from there, or hand them directly to the postal worker
• Install a lock on your mailbox and cut a silt in the front just large enough to put your mail in but not your hand.
• Learn to pay your bills online either directly through the company you are paying or through your bank’s bill pay feature, which is usually free.
• Never leave the outgoing mail in your box late on a Saturday or Sunday where it will sit until Monday waiting for the mail carrier to pick it up.