According to recent reports and fraud experts, check fraud is booming again. In the last 6 months, various new variants of old methods have emerged.
In large part, those losses are driven by skyrocketing thefts of checks from the mail, which are then “washed” and cashed or deposited by fraudsters through bank accounts.
By all indications, these massive check losses are showing no signs of slowing down; in fact, mail thefts and fraudulent check use are just increasing.
But the war on check fraud may have one formidable enemy, which comes in the form of a $2 pen.
Buy A Stolen Check And Recook The Glass
On any given day, tens and thousands of stolen checks are being sold online in marketplaces on Telegram and marketed as “glass” because they are guaranteed to clear.
Sellers of these checks instruct the buyer to “recook the glass with your own drop name and increase the amount”.
“Recooking” is just a fancy new term for check washing. Check washing means chemically removing the ink from the legitimate check and replacing it with anything you want.
Here is an example of someone showing you how to do it.
This $2 Pen Might Help Prevent The Rise in Check Fraud
For consumers that want to avoid becoming victims of this latest fraud trend, there are really only a couple of things they can do – 1) stop writing checks, 2) or stop mailing checks and use online banking only, or 3) use a new pen.
The pen is called the Uni-Ball 207 Gel, and fraudsters hate it.
The secret to the success of the pen is in the gel ink. Gel pen ink is hard to erase so that makes it bad for check washers.
The gel-based ink starts off as a solid. When applied to paper, it turns liquid and immediately back to a solid.
The ink is impervious to many of the chemicals that check washers use, so it works like a charm. You can watch video by Dr Uniball from several years ago demonstrate how it works.
