Byline: Rhonda Sciarra Daily Herald Staff WriterSciarra, Rhonda
One of the most common scams is check washing. On a small scale, check washing refers to people stealing checks from individual mailboxes, erasing the ink and writing in a higher value to a different recipient. On a larger scale, washed checks can be duplicated and illicitly sold. How to ...
written and cashed during the statement period. Better yet, everyone should set up an online banking account, if only to have the ability to check their checking account activity more often than once a month. That gives the account holder time to review the checks paid and verify the amount...
Financial technology has become highly sophisticated and secure. Meanwhile, the money lost to identity theft is on the rise. If your paper statements and bills are lost, stolen from your mailbox, or even swiped from your recycling bin, someone could use that information. When you hand a paper...
This process prevents altered checks from being cashed by using a stolen account number or a blank or “washed” check. It also prevents the payee from altering the check amount or other vital pieces of information. Whether you seek to send out ten payments or 100,000 payments, your company...
Check endorsements work in much the same way. The receiver of the check must validate they are in fact the check receiver by signing their own signature on the back of the check and providing the bank teller or cashier with their ID. This ensures that the check is being cashed or deposite...
Subtract the amount of any checks, withdrawals, payments, and bank fees from the previous transaction, or add the amount of any deposits. Reconcile your bank statement each month. When you receive your monthly bank statement, whether it comes in the mail or you view it online, take the time...
In other words, if it ends up in the wrong hands, the check can only be deposited into a bank account, such as a checking account, preventing it from being directly cashed. You should also add your account number below “For deposit only.” Special or full endorsement Sometimes, you ...
Stolen Checks and Check Theft: When a check is stolen—whether from the mail, a business, or an individual—it can be altered before being cashed or deposited. Fraudsters may change the payee’s name or the dollar amount and then attempt to cash the stolen check. In some cases, checks ...
A money order doesn’t show your account information and can only be cashed by the designated payee. So you might feel more comfortable using a money order if you need to send money by mail, for example. Plus, you can typically use the receipt to track the money order. ...