small, has moved from a matrix printer to a laser printer to disperse payroll and accounts payable checks. It's faster, it's cleaner, and it's more efficient. With a laser printer, these companies can buy blank check paper, lay it in the cassette, and actually print the entire check - the company logo, the bank's logo, the routing numbers, the account number, even the signature.
Now a laser printer is a non-impact printer - in other words, there's no ink put into the paper. A matrix printer shoots ink into the paper. A jet printer puts ink into the paper. A typewriter puts ink into the paper via the ribbon. With a laser printer, toner is applied to the paper by heat, so the toner is sitting on top of the paper. Which is why we call it non-impact printing.
Years ago, when criminals stole, say, a thirty-thousand-dollar check made out to a construction company, they would bring it to a forger and explain that they wanted the forger to get rid of the payee name, so they could type in a new name and cash the check. Fine, the forger said, it'll be done in two weeks. The criminal was aghast. Two weeks? The forger said, hey, you're asking me to move ink off of paper. He had to extract the ink using bleaches, solvents, acetones, hydrochlorides, polarized chemicals, non-polarized chemicals. He had to take each letter, and do it slowly, or else the check would become abrasive and you'd notice it.
With today's laser checks, criminals have devised a new methodology. They take a piece of Scotch tape - the gray, cloudy kind that doesn't rip the paper when you peel it off - and put it over the dollar amount and over the payee name. They use a fingernail to rub it down hard over the check, and then lift the tape off. The dollar amount and the name and the address will come off on the tape. The toner attaches to the Scotch tape and gets pulled from the fiber of the paper. If there's any laser toner residue left over, a little high-polymer plastic eraser will take care of that. Sometimes forgers use dental picks, razor blades, or dry ice to remove the toner, but Scotch tape works quite nicely.
People are shocked when I tell them this, and then they go back and try it and sure enough that's what happens. So any idiot can take a strip of tape and remove the nine dollars off a check and type in nine thousand or ninety thousand.
And that's what the forger collecting the mail does. He uses tape to remove the payee's name and address, and of course, the amount. He types in his name and the amount he wants, and deposits it at the bank. Sixty days later, the construction company that was supposed to get the check calls the payer and says that it hasn't gotten its money. The payer calls the bank, but it's too late. The money is long gone.
It's that simple, because we make it that simple.
REVENGE OF THE SCIENCE GEEK
Forgers must have all had chemistry sets as kids, because another thing they love to do is to chemically alter checks. It used to be that the only chemical banks had to worry about was bleach. If banks used bleach-sensitive paper, they'd be protected. Today no forger uses bleach. Instead, all sorts of simple chemicals, like acetone, are used to modify checks. What's the product of choice from which to get acetone? Nail polish remover. It's 99 percent acetone.
If someone mails me a check today for nine dollars, but they're a Fortune 500 company and I know that they have a bit more than that in the bank, I do a little chemistry experiment. I take that check, put Scotch tape over the signature of the controller, put tape on the back of the check where the signature would be on the front, lay that check in a cake pan, take some nail polish - no other ingredient - and pour that bottle of nail polish over the check. In a matter of seconds, everything that was put there by a typewriter, laser printer, jet printer, matrix printer, ballpoint pen, or flair pen is off the check. Because acetone removes anything that's not a base ink. So the company's logo, the bank name, the check number, and the borders of the check will stay. But anything that's typed on or printed on by a laser