PSA — forged check wiped out my checking account

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FYI, the exact same thing happened to me about a month ago, except thr amount was $17,000, and I only had that much money in my account because I had a big tax bill coming due that was set up to be paid by ACH. I write almost no checks, only to my cleaning people and the occasional handyman, but mobile check deposit has increased the problem. I suspect my cleaning lady deposited a check and then tossed it in her garbage or recycling without shredding it, and it had all of the information somebody needed to make a fake check. It was deposited, not at Bank of America, which is my bank, but Chase. BofA has been good about helping me fix it, but I still have all sorts of things like the $35 charge from WSSC for a payment that didn’t clear. They won’t reimburse me for that. And it wasn’t their fault - it was Chase!

I really don’t think people are going through the trash looking for checks to forge. I think it’s much more likely someone bought your account number from an online list stolen in a data breech.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FYI, the exact same thing happened to me about a month ago, except thr amount was $17,000, and I only had that much money in my account because I had a big tax bill coming due that was set up to be paid by ACH. I write almost no checks, only to my cleaning people and the occasional handyman, but mobile check deposit has increased the problem. I suspect my cleaning lady deposited a check and then tossed it in her garbage or recycling without shredding it, and it had all of the information somebody needed to make a fake check. It was deposited, not at Bank of America, which is my bank, but Chase. BofA has been good about helping me fix it, but I still have all sorts of things like the $35 charge from WSSC for a payment that didn’t clear. They won’t reimburse me for that. And it wasn’t their fault - it was Chase!

I really don’t think people are going through the trash looking for checks to forge. I think it’s much more likely someone bought your account number from an online list stolen in a data breech.

Actually around Christmastime in MoCo there were police reports of people fishing envelopes out of mailboxes to do exactly this (get check information to copy or duplicate). The police officer who came to my house to take my police report said she had seem some were you could actually see the white out on the check.

[Anonymous]

I’m not sure how you were naive. You didn’t know anything wrong and this could happen to anyone. This is why our bank accounts are insured in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:First of all, why do you have $12k in a bank account?

Put that in another type of account to make you more in interest!

Secondly, no more checks, you grandmas and grandpas!

If they won't accept an online payment, find another company/service. It's 2022 not 2002.

I find DCUM posters who don’t bother to read the posts and then comment supremely annoying.

As I said, before, I am a freelancer and often get large deposits. I don’t get a “regualr” paycheck.

Also, I have bills. I pay my mortgage, my mother’s AL payment, and that alone adds up to 8.5k a month.

I don’t need to have a reason why i had 12k in my bank. It’s a bank. It’s supposed to be safe.

I did nothing irresponsible so stop trying to blame me. Yeesh.

Our local church preschool is now adding a service fee to CC payments so the only options are check or CC. I refuse to pay an additional 4% (more than any cash back I would make on my CC anyways) so checks it is. Everything else we use CC or cash.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wow thanks for this PSA!

In Europe people routinely give out their bank account numbers for people to transfer money in without problems, I don't know why we have such an insecure system here.

Europe uses the SEPA system and bank account numbers can only be used to send money to, not withdraw money from. So who cares if someone has your number -- they can only give you money, not take it away.

The US uses ACH, which allows both directions of transactions, since it was designed for an earlier era. There is a new version of this on the way, but it'll be years, partly because we have 10,000+ banks that would need to ugprade their systems, and it's a massoive undertaking.

Remember when your creidt cards didn't have a "chip' in them? That was a 2-3 year effort to get all those upgraded, and I still now and then come across a point of sale system where I need to swipe.

Interesting – thanks for the information!

[Anonymous]

OP - what you didn't say (or I didn't catch) is --- if the bank put back the 12K ?

[Anonymous]

OP said her bank gave her the money back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP - what you didn't say (or I didn't catch) is --- if the bank put back the 12K ?

I'm wondering this too, it is their fault for cashing a forged cheque without a verified signature.

[Anonymous]

So, a mistake was made and they gave her her money back

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, a mistake was made and they gave her her money back

Costly mistake.
And probably hugely inconvenient, worrying, and violating to the op so it's not that simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the heads up. I recently started paying by Zelle. Not sure if that's standard with all checking accounts. I don't believe your routing and account number are shared, so hopefully this is a safer way to pay for things.

Zelle is worse if it’s tied to your bank account. There is no fraud protection like there is with banks. If you use Zelle or Venmo, tie them to your credit card.

https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/customers-scammed-zelle-banking-app-have-virtually-no-fraud-protection-consumer-advocates-say/KKSK5LIOWVD47PF2UPTR4IMXSA/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You dont' even need to have checks. If they have your routing number and account number (many online bill payment services ask this), then they can make a fake check with that info.

I had it happen once when they stole a check from outgoing mail (from a USPS mailbox). Very annoying. It's happening all around MoCo, here's a case from yesterday:
http://www.rockvillenights.com/2022/04/mail-stolen-out-of-home-mailbox-in.html

I have an email alert on all my accounts for any transaction over $100. Sure it's a bunch of emails, but I've caught a credit card fraud pretty quickly that way.

Same thing that happened to OP happened to my dad and this was why.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the heads up. I recently started paying by Zelle. Not sure if that's standard with all checking accounts. I don't believe your routing and account number are shared, so hopefully this is a safer way to pay for things.

Zelle is worse if it’s tied to your bank account. There is no fraud protection like there is with banks. If you use Zelle or Venmo, tie them to your credit card.

https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/customers-scammed-zelle-banking-app-have-virtually-no-fraud-protection-consumer-advocates-say/KKSK5LIOWVD47PF2UPTR4IMXSA/

Zelle is tied to my BofA account. I don’t use it often. How do I tie it to a cc? Should I open up a BofA cc for this purpose?

[Anonymous]

This has been an eye opening thread. Wondering what precautions we can take to minimize this type of fraud and do banks have to return the money back in this case or is it based on bank’s good will?

[Anonymous]

It looks like the Zelle fraud stories are because users fell for scams and responded to fake texts and calls, not because of the platform itself, right?