Believe it or not, thiefs and scammers are still out for your checks in 2017. One of the most risky scams is a fake check and this would fall in lines with money orders and cashier checks as well. More notably, fake checks are increasingly risky because banks are required to make funds from a deposit available in a matter of a day or two, sometimes even less. Fake checks can take upwards of weeks before being discovered and if your deposited check is bounced, you’ll have no choice but to pay your reparations towards such. Essentially, this post will better help you prepare in the event that something like this would happen
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How To Monitor Your Check Activity:
We can’t exactly say that big banks haven’t caught up with the times, because they have and there’s plenty of ways for you to avoid such a situation on your side as well. Just last week, Discover introduced their new Discover Free Account Monitoring Services that keeps you one step ahead with new Free Alert Services that include Social Security Number Alerts and New Account Alerts. Chase’s Credit Journey platform also offers credit monitoring going as far as identifying anything that constitutes fraud or potential fraud. These services won’t go as far as protecting you from check scams, however they do their part if you’re required to enter in your personal information on any sketchy website.
I mean, nowadays, most banks have a systematic approach towards this problem integrating authorization towards only paying checks that are made to payees on a predetermined list that you’ve established previously. This is known to be Positive Pay, which is one of the stronger suites in Huntington Bank’s arsenal of provided securities, including Huntington’s renowned Business Securities. Positive Pay can be widely effective, however, it could also be limiting if your checks go out to vendors that change frequently.
If you want that extra dosage of protection, then becoming a private client with a bank could be an option as well. Chase Private Clients are offered a stream of benefits to reap from with one of those being real-time fraud monitoring, which goes as far as offering you the most exceptional banking experiences possible, however, the requirements can be quite strenuous for quite a sum of us, me included.
Avoid paying with checks is the most viable way to avoid fraud, cash can get lost or stolen and unfortunately, you have no recourse in such an event. Almost all transactions can be subject to fraud, not just checks.
How To Avoid A Scam:
- Use Positive-Pay: Huntington currently offers an extensive range of securities including Positive-Pay and Business Security Suites.
- Do not mail your checks out, whether it be from your personal mail box or even U.S. Postal service mail boxes.
- You are practically much safer paying your bills electronically.
- Businesses, Private Clients, you can make counterfeiting checks much more difficult by integrating special safety features with your checks, however, they come with an added cost.
- Set up any alert service that identifies fraud and theft. Two suggestions: Discover Free Account Monitoring and Chase’s Credit Journey.
- Check your checks, store blank and canceled checks more securely. Report any lost or stolen checks immediately. Use your checks in order and look for check numbers that are considered “out-of-order” on your statement. The check number “out-of-order” could indicate a fraud variant.
- Sign up for paperless statement services
Conclusion:
You can’t necessarily assume that banks haven’t caught up with the times because there’s a whole lot of added securities to make the possibility of an event of fraud or theft more slim. However, let’s face it, scams are still prevalent, scammers are increasingly more cunning and avoiding to pay with checks may be the most viable way to avoid fraud. Note that almost all transactions can be subject to fraud, not just checks. If this has happened to you, there’s ways for you to dispute it with your bank, be sure to provide the utmost evidence that you didn’t do those transactions as possible. Don’t forget to check out our full list of Credit Card Bonuses for all of your credit card needs.
