Still sending checks in the mail? It's time to stop. It can be risky

Palm Beach Post ^ | September 5, 2026 | Daniel de Visé

[ConservativeStatement]

Every time you send a paper check in the mail, consumer advocates say, you're putting your bank account at risk.

Check fraud is rising, even as the number of checks in circulation is declining. In 2025, federal data shows, Americans lost more money to check fraud than to debit card or gift card scams.

Consumers are writing fewer checks these days, but the amounts are larger, and thieves know it.

"Criminals know that when they see a check in the mail, it's less likely to be a $10 check and more likely to be a $10,000 check," said Scott Anchin, senior vice president of strategic initiatives and policy at the Independent Community Bankers of America.

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TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: checks; mail; theft

[MD Expat in PA]

I pay all my bills electronically - everything - rent, utilities, car insurance, cellphone, CC; some are auto payments and some with variable amounts, I pay by logging into their secure website.

I either pay it by providing my debit card number or my bank routing and account numbers and I’ve never encountered a fee for doing so.

The only time I had to pay a fee was when I was between jobs and had to pay my rent using a CC (not my bank debit card) and had to pay a 2% fee.

[Fledermaus]

Ah, young people figuring out something us older folks have known for years.

Check fraud has gone on since checks.

[Fledermaus]

Fortunately ours don’t. No fees.

[ansel12]

Evidently some utilities charge a fee for online payments and some don’t.

[Fledermaus]

We used to put our phone numbers, driving license numbers and earlier our SS number on the checks.

Never had a problem.

But I haven’t used a check in 15 years.

[Mean Daddy]

Buy Uni-ball 207 gel pen. Supposedly can’t be washed. Readily available at Walmart, Amazon etc. Have a couple for the rare times we have to write a check.

[Mean Daddy]

Just posted the same!! Uni-ball 207 gel pens

[dagunk]

A guy I know is a bank officer. He suggests using an anti-fraud pen when writing checks. Fraudsters will try to “wash” checks to change the amount and the payee. Ink from these special pens is difficult to wash.
He specifically recommended the uniball 207 pen. It’s available on Amazon.
***********************************************
Get them by the box from Amazon. Been doing it for years.
I’ve seen this recommendation elsewhere.

[ArtDodger]

I have a physical mailbox and a post office box. Two different zip codes. The mailbox mail gives me trouble as it goes thru a small town post office with workers who seem to have sticky fingers and letters disappear. The post office mail is fine and that is where I send payment checks.
A short time ago, I bought some violin strings from Amazon and had them ship thru the mailbox route. the packages were opened and gone through with no resealing or notices explaining that the mail had be officially searched. Luckily the expensive strings all made it the final leg without anything dropping out.

[dkGba]

Touchè

[Texas resident]

The USPS can’t be counted on to secure the mail from thieves.
The big blue boxes are easy to break into.
But they can be counted on to deliver democrat ballots and lose republican ballots.

[MalPearce]

A check in the mail? How the heck is a system that antiquated and that fraud-prone still a regular thing in the USA?

I’ve received the grand sum of precisely two checks in the mail since 2001. The first was a rebate for an overpayment on a loan I’d already settled over a year earlier; the second related to a closed escrow account for a deceased relative’s probate. In both cases the only reason they had to send a check is because I was the legal recipient for funds where the bank details for a Faster Payment were already defunct.

My last check book was issued to me in 1999 and I’ve still not had a single occasion since then where someone’s even suggested I could pay by check, let alone actually asked me to do that in preference to cash, Faster Payments or BACS.

Most of the time, I provide the name of the payee and their bank details into the online portal / banking app, which THEN checks that I’ve given the correct details and the name matches the account holder (business or person), and ONLY THEN does it transfer the money from my account to theirs.

It either does this within 3 minutes if I choose “do it now”, or does it at the exact date and time I tell it to process the transfer.

Nobody I know still bothers with the post-it + pray + wait for a week faff of using checks. Not even small businesses.

I went on holiday recently to a village really far up in the Yorkshire moors (the kind of place that ought to have a pub called The Slaughtered Lamb), and their “LOCAL shop for LOCAL people” had a sign up that looked like it was from the 80s, that said “we take cash and checks” - they left it up for a laugh. Because in practice it costs nothing if their customers pay by cash or card (the post office at the other end of the village doesn’t charge for cash withdrawals from the counter).

By contrast, it costs a BOMB to cash a check now. Because the shopkeeper would have to go to a town 20 miles away to pay the check in - which they can only do in office hours. Which means closing the shop for an hour AND with the cost of gas what it is right now, it’s only practical if the value of the checks greatly exceeds the cost of the fuel needed to pay them in.

the other option is to post the checks to the bank’s processing center - and wait five days for (1) confirmation that the check even arrived safely at their end, and (2) confirmation that the check cleared.

If anyone can explain a coherent and logical upside to that process, when the alternative is much cheaper, much more fraud-resistant, and often instantaneous, I’d really love to hear it.

[henbane]

Been using bank checks for over 60 years and never a problem. Been using Credit Cards for 30 years and multiple problems listing CC numbers with a wide variety of vendors.

Due to a variety of CC sign-up procedures--some smooth as silk--others virtually impossible to complete--getting signed up merely to buy a leather watch band can be very tricky business.

Credit Card Scamsters are forever infesting my computer mail with a wide variety of fraudulent bills using fake PayPal, Adobe, Amazon and similar accounts. The enormous and overwhelming amount of this Credit Card fraud has forced each of these large online companies to create its own "phishing" department--a seemingly hopeless effort trying to address the onslaught of Credit Card fraud.

Sending Bank Checks through the U.S mail to pay bills has never created a single problem over these decades and the Bank pays me interest to keep a balance in their establishment.

On the other hand, the ravenous Credit Card world imposes absolutely insane interest rates on every dime that they lend out--as well as fiercely punitive late fees for a simple oversight.

I will continue to send bank checks safely thru the mail and I will try to limit all Credit Card purchases on a "Necessary Evil" basis.