The Mark of the Beast will be much safer.
Just made a Donation to FReeper by Mail
And I’m nervous now....
.
Oh Well...
Pray for Me!
Something that bugs me is how much utilities and such charge for paying online versus mailing it.
For someone with a bunch of forever stamps it seems like the companies would prefer payment online rather than the envelopes and opening them, and handling checks, instead they charge you a lot.
I stopped mailing checks a few years ago. Zelle and Venmo made that happen for me. If I must send a check, then it goes by overnight envelope.
Fwiw, the local council on aging, including meals on wheels, still has you hand the meals delivery person collecting checks!
They do not even have webpages.
Nowadays, a crooked sort of character doesn’t even need to steam the sealed envelope open to peek inside.
I used to see that method on old black & white mystery movies. One movie was ‘Charade (1963) In Alfred Hitchcock’s caper, ‘Reggie’ (Audrey Hepburn) discovers the truth about her late husband’s stolen fortune.”
There are other ways to decipher the contents.
“Thieves pull checks from residential mailboxes and fish them out of USPS drop boxes. Larger operations steal entire bags of mail.”
There are banking regulations that protect fraudulent passing of checks. And last I knew, negotiable instrument fraud (Checks) is faster to resolve than fraudulent electronic transactions.
In the last 6 years I have experienced 6 attempts at electronic fraud and zero incidents with checks. Three credit cards had to be cancelled and replaced. O with checks.
Best risk reduction to stollen mailed checks - give it to clerk at the postal window or drop in the postal box inside the post office. Also, never write a check for an in-store purchase, except for purchasing a brand-new automobile from the dealership. They have that check vacuumed out of your bank account before you drive off the lot!
On-line payments are much easier & convenient.
I 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.
I know, I know, my Tin Foil may be wrapped too tight.
BUT.
When I see things like this my cynical brain automatically goes to:
“Oh, this is a propaganda piece, an influential nudge piece, to make people more worried and afraid of paper checks and money, so we move faster into completely digital finances”.
Or something like that.
Anyone else?
Checks have your bank routing info and your account number on it. The thieves just need that info to cause the problems, not the check. Intercept the check, get that info and then send the check on its way without anyone knowing that you now have that info. How much stuff could you buy or get cash transferred with that info via “e-check” before the victim found out and did something to stop it? Then get someone else’s check and rinse and repeat. There isn’t enough punishment meted out these days for that sort of fraud which won’t deter stupid people.
As risky as putting your cc number all over?
Americans lost more money to check fraud than to debit card or gift card scams.
What the Federal Reserve reports
A 2024 Federal Reserve Financial Services survey of over 360 banks and credit unions found that debit card fraud was the single largest source of fraud losses, accounting for 39% of total payment fraud losses in 2024, followed by check fraud at 30%
ABA Banking Journal
ABA Banking Journal
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net Says
I rcently sent a direct rollover check for $750k via USPS tracking mail. They lost the check after one day
Every “customer service” rep i dealt with on the phone or email I ended the conversation the same way- “and you people think you can handle our election ballots???!!!
More shilling for a totally digital economy, which is a tool of the surveillance state.
🤔. Likely they’d feel so bad they would make a deposit into my account. 😂👍🇺🇸
“”it’s less likely to be a $10 check and more likely to be a $10,000 check,””
Hokem! Taken from a person’s mailbox? ...Not likely. Anyone mailing a check for $10,000.00 needs help!!!
I have multiple bank accounts for multiple purposes, and I use some of them for any transaction that could be risky whether check or online or debit card. Of course those accounts have a small balance to limit the risk of someone trying to clean out my account.
bkmk