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Crime: Forgotten Fraud: Counterfeit Cheques
Banks lost $698 million
from scams in 2001 only a few decades
ago, fooling a bank into cashing a counterfeit
check required forgery skills, a nomadic
attitude and steady confidence. Modern
technology, however, has since lowered
the bar. "It's probably about 2,000 times
easier today than it was 30 years ago,"
says Frank Abagnale, a banking industry
consultant whose youth as a master check
forger in the 1960s was depicted in the
2002 movie, "Catch Me If You Can." In
the past, a criminal needed a warehouse-sized
machine to create realistic bank checks.
"Today we can sit in a hotel room with
a laptop, a scanner and printer," he says.
"We can fabricate a check and make it
even more beautiful than the bank's."
Abagnale travels the country as a consultant
for Nashville's Progeny Marketing Innovations,
warning banks about the ingenuity and
tenacity of fraudsters. The American Bankers
Association says that criminals attempted
more than $4.3 billion in deposit-account
fraud in 2001, a year banks lost $698
million. The number of attempts has doubled
every two years since 1997. (Read
more...)
Despite
the heavy use of credit cards and online
payments, and the redoubled efforts of
the FBI and police anti-fraud units, check
fraud continues to increase. CFEs can
benefit from reviewing the rudiments of
check fraud detection and prevention,
and the new twists. (Read
more...)
Check Fraud: Minimize Your Exposure
Check fraud
continues to rise at alarming rates. According
to the American Bankers Association (ABA)
Deposit Account Fraud Survey, attempted
check fraud surpassed $4.3 billion in
2001, with actual losses equaling $698
million. Every employer may be a potential
target to be defrauded at some point,
even if preventive measures are being
taken.
Criminals today have
a number of tools to aid them in committing
check fraud. Sophisticated new technology,
including computers, color copiers, and
scanners, can easily be used to forge
or counterfeit checks or alter payee names
and amounts. To the untrained eye, these
checks appear genuine and are often considered
valid and cashed. Criminals will also
go to great lengths to obtain personal
or corporate financial information such
as account numbers and check styles that
make counterfeiting a simpler task. Some
common methods include stealing checks,
or working with bank insiders or dishonest
employees of check cashing merchants who
are willing to provide this confidential
information. In most cases, by the time
the criminal act is detected, the criminal(s)
involved is long gone. (Read
more...)
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