Even the Better Business Bureau is warning against sending checks by mail: report

23 June 2023

In the United States, the problem of checks being stolen from the mail by fraudsters has gone from bad to worse. And the problem has become so severe that even the Better Business Bureau, according to CBS News, is urging customers to avoid sending checks by mail.

Journalist Jon Delano, reporting for KDKA-TV News (CBS News' Pittsburgh affiliate) in an article published on June 20, explains, "Americans wrote 3.4 billion checks last year, according to the Federal Reserve, and many of them end up in the U.S. Postal Service to pay bills for one thing or another. Now…. more of them are getting stolen than ever…. The Postal Service reports that complaints of mail theft doubled in 2021, and banks report that check fraud jumped to 680,000 reports last year, up from 300,000 the year before."

Delano reports that the fraudsters who are stealing checks from the mail could range from "workers at postal distribution centers who recognize a check in an envelope" to "thieves who fish envelopes out of mailboxes."

"Whoever is doing the theft," Delano reports, "data on your bank checks can be used by sophisticated scam artists who can also change the name of the payee and even the amount on the check."

Caitlin Driscoll of the U.S. Better Business Bureau advises against mailing a check from a blue U.S. Postal Service mailbox on the street and recommends going to a post office instead — that is, if one is mailing checks at all.

Driscoll told CBS News Pittsburgh, "If you are choosing to mail a check, it is always recommended that you use a secure mail drop such as inside a post office versus an unsecured public-facing mailbox."

Delano notes that many Americans avoid having their checks stolen in the mail by paying their bills online, but he adds that "online payment fraud" is a major problem as well and recommends that internet users "pay by credit card, not debit, if at all possible."

CBS News' Aimee Picchi, in an article published on June 22, reports that fraudsters who steal checks are using a method known as "check washing" to "scam you out of your money."

"That involves using chemicals that erase your writing on the check, such as the name of the recipient and the amount of the check," Picchi explains. "Once the payment is blank, they can fill in new information, including the amount. In one case, a man mailed a $42 check to pay a phone bill and was shocked when it was cashed for $7000, paid out to someone he'd never heard of."

Picchi adds, "In another case, nearly 60 individuals last year were arrested in Southern California on charges of committing more than $5 million in check fraud against 750 people."

The U.S. Postal service, according to Picchi, "recommends that people post mail inside their local post office or at their workplace." The agency told CBS News, "Our recommendations are provided as an extra precaution for those who feel more comfortable taking their mail to the Postal Office."

Read CBS News' reports on stolen checks at this link and here.

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