When I first read about check washing, my first thought was that it was a city phenomenon, not something that would reach our small Massachusetts town.
Check washing is when common household products are used to erase what the original writer has entered, and then a new recipient, and often a new amount, in put in its place. The drive-up mailboxes that once sat
in front of our main post office are gone, having been targets of thieves who
broke in and stole mail. The majority of our own bills are paid on-line, but
there are one or two that I still send a check to. Case in point, the $10 copay
I just mailed to my primary care doctor. Anyone who intercepted that check
could easily add a few zeroes.
Hmmm, I'd never heard of "check washing", geez, things you've gotta look out for. Our neighborhood also has the big communal locking mailboxes. I rarely write checks these days, much less mail them. Most "kids" in their 20s, I've noticed, barely know what it is to write a check.
ReplyDeleteCheque washing is new to me. Aaargh. Like you, I still pay some bills that way.
ReplyDeleteI swear that I didn't understand the cheek washing phenomenon at all .. . And then I read more carefully.
ReplyDeleteWe use auto pay , online for everything and that has made me uncomfortable, I like paper- but this changes my antiquated mind for sure!
ReplyDeleteI also know that your money can be "washed" in the same way and then reprinted with larger amounts and since the original fabric is used it can't easily be detected as counterfeit. I saw it on a TV show so maybe that whole idea itself is fake but who knows? In the show people were washing one dollar bills and reprinting them as hundreds.
ReplyDeleteI get my bills online and pay the same way, also we Australians rarely use cheques and they are being phased out by our government.