05 Sep Why do ‘washed checks’ get through bank security?

Q. I have a question about washed checks. My brokerage account does not allow me to pay online because it’s not considered a bank. Anyway, two business checks I mailed on the same day were stolen and washed, $3,000 and $4,000 each, with fictitious names. I picked up on the first one the day after it was cashed and we closed the account — what a pain going forward! The second check was attempted to be cashed a week later but by then the account was closed and so it bounced. I just want to know who cashes these washed checks?
— Consumer

A. Great question, and we’re sorry to hear this happened to you.

Check washing is when someone gets their hand on your check, literally washing some ink off with chemicals. They they typically change who the check is written to and also the amount to be paid.

Unfortunately, banks and brokerages aren’t always very good at picking up the changes to the checks. It’s because so many transactions are done by machine instead of by a human, and unfortunately, these things are not always picked up by their anti-fraud efforts.

The Bamboozled column recently wrote about the issue.

We reported that about 14.5 billion checks are written each year, down by almost two-thirds over the past 20 years from nearly 43 billion checks a year, according to data from the Federal Reserve. More than 90% were written to pay bills, it said.

Most are deposited electronically, and a 2023 survey by the American Bankers Association found only 9% of consumers prefer to use tellers.

Using methods other than tellers saves the industry huge amounts of money, so even though some fraud checks do get through, the cost of reimbursing funds is far less than it would be to pay for humans to review all the checks. Call it the cost of doing business.

If you can’t use electronic payments and need to write a check, consider using a gel pan, which experts say can’t be “washed.”

Email your questions to .

This story was originally published in September 2024.

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