MISSOURI, USA — Check fraud linked to mail theft is surging across the country. An average of 10,000 checks per month were stolen out of USPS mailboxes during the fall of 2023, according to Georgia State University's Cybersecurity Research Group.
Crooks tamper with the checks and steal from personal bank accounts.
Patti Hoag, a 5 On Your Side viewer, asked our research team whether certain pens make checks more tamper-proof. We looked into the facts to VERIFY.
The question
Do gel pens help deter check fraud?
Our sources
- David Maimon, director of the evidence-based cybersecurity research group at Georgia State University
- Matthew Villicana, Team leader for the USPS financial crimes unit in the St. Louis region
The answer
No, according to our experts, criminals have evolved and no longer need to "wash," or erase, ink on a check. Therefore, using gel ink won't help prevent the majority of check fraud.
What we found
The crime of "check washing" first surfaced in 2021, and experts subsequently recommended using gel pens to write checks from now on. The gel ink was reportedly more resistant to the chemicals criminals were using to remove the ink.
Criminals have since evolved, according to experts. They are no longer using chemicals to wipe away ink but are instead using computer software to make identical blank counterfeit copies of the check that include the victim's signature.
"They will scan the signature of the original owner of the check to the software and they will start printing those checks and change the check number on the top," Maimon said.
Unfortunately, no pen can stop this new evolution of check fraud. Villicana said that some banks have programs that will alert customers to the possibility of fraudulent checks before they clear their bank accounts.
We can VERIFY: No, gel pens can no longer make check fraud harder for criminals because criminals no longer need to erase ink to commit check fraud.
VERIFY
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