So, there is an easy solution to your problem. Don’t close your bank account. Simply reduce the amount in it to a token level and leave it active. Then open an account at another financial institution. I would suggest a credit union, not a bank.

If the account is open and active, the bank would have somewhere to deposit the funds. Once that was done, withdraw everything and close the account permanently. Never do business with that entity again.

In the town I live in there are no drop boxes for mail because they were all removed as they were constantly being broken into. I had a check stolen same as yours. I got a picture of the check and it was very clear that the contractor I had made it out to had been covered with white out and replaced with someone’s name. It was impossible to miss but was cashed anyway. If I mail a check I now only use the drop off inside the post office, never a drop box in front of the post office. Last month my recycling and yard waste bins were stolen if you can believe that. This town sucks more than most but not as much as inner cities where crime is out of control. The US is now a shithole. I’m thinking of moving to Russia. I now pay my bills with a credit card and rarely write checks because of this.

A major sign the USA is backward and underdeveloped is the absurd, foolish and clearly risky continuing use of paper cheques and postal mail to pay bills. In many European and East Asian countries, paper cheques have essentially disappeared. You pay bills via a zero-cost online banking transaction, your payment ‘wired’ directly – and these days often instantly – into the recipient’s bank account.

Though it was fun to get a Donald Trump covid ‘stimulus’ cheque with DJT’s name on it. Living in Europe when the first cheque was mailed out, I needed to make a special appointment at the bank to hand over the rare-for-Europe cheque for processing.

Looking at my US Treasury cheque with Donald Trump’s name on it, the African-heritage bank officer broke out in laughter and a big grin. ‘Wow, being an American!’ he said. ‘You don’t even live in the USA and President Trump sends you big money. What a great country!’

I’ve used only 1 check in the last year as I just to an EFT transfer from my bank account to pay all bills. Much better. But possibly too technical a process for a failed leftist comic?

People really need to know how to protect themselves these days with paper checks, because the banks are little help with all the fraud going on. You do have some protections by law, but you have to monitor your bank statements very carefully for fraudulent charges, and in the author’s case, the charge can even look legit if the check is “washed” or just copied/modified, and deposited by cell phone picture. Checks are printed with magnetic ink for the routing and account numbers, but that minor protection is obviously lost if it is just deposited via a cell phone photo.

There is lots of info online about how to avoid check fraud as described in the article. It has gotten much worse now that banks allow people to deposit checks into their account just by taking the cell phone picture of it (a really stupid idea), since the check image can easily be modified with any graphics program before deposit. Banks may also not not be verifiying anymore that the signature on the check even resembles your signature on file, unless it is a very large check. ( There is lots of info online about how paper checks are processed electronically if you Google the subject.)

Some tips:

Most bank managers will tell you that you should no longer write paper checks at if you can avoid it due to possible fraud (US Bank now tells customers this). It is obviously much better to use a credit card (where charges are easily contested) or an “e-check” where you enter your bank routing number and your account number online on the vendor’s secure website. For paying rent or mortgages many property managers, banks, finance companies, etc. now have this set up on their websites, with an e-check fee of about $3 (as opposed to a big 3.5% charge if the renter pays by credit card). If you must use a paper check to pay rent to a landlord, you can obviously hand deliver it each month to them, rather than mailing. Or you can actually deposit the check at the landlord’s bank, if they will give you their account number.

I’d avoid using the other smart phone and online payment systems. There has been a huge amount of fraud going on with them, where people have had their bank accounts totally drained in short order. Yes, I know, they are supposed to be the “modern” payment methods, but they are still not very secure. If you use them, research and understand the risks.

If you write a paper check, at least use one of the special pens with ink that is harder to wash off with chemicals, such as the UniBall Signo 207 Pen – either medium or bold (at Walmart, Amazon, etc.). The medium type tends to clog with the speical ink if not used frequently; the bold give gives a wide line but doesn’t clog.

If you must mail a check, only drop it into the slot INSIDE the post office, and do so before the last posted daily pickup – often this is before 5 pm. No outdoor post office box (typically the blue ones) is safe anymore. Thieves routinely rob postal workers of their master keys which will open all the USPS boxes in a particular area; so they don’t even need to “fish” inside the boxes for checks as described in the article.

There are similar issues for home mailboxes. Theives are robbing the USPS employees of the main keys to apartment, condo, and neighborhood “kiosk” boxes, and USPS may NOT notify you of this. Do not have any checks, credit cards, replacment check packets, etc. sent to an unlocked home mailbox; they sell ones now that have a slot and you unlock it with your own key to retreive the mail. You can obviously also rent a USPS post office box and have any sensitive mail sent there. This also allows you to get packages at the PO box and avoid “porch pirates.” USPS now also allows “street addressing” for PO boxes so you can get UPS and FedEx deliveries – ask a USPS clerk about this (details also oline on the USPS site and elsewhere).

If you use paper checks, have new check packets delivered only to your bank for pickup. Don’t have them mailed. Check packages have been stolen by USPS employees in the mail since they so obviously contain check packets (a flat plastic pack where the check packets iniside can be easily felt). If the package is stolen in the mail is a HUGE hassle, since the bank has to stop payment on all the checks, and they could possibly charge you a large amount to do that – they can claim that you got the checks but just lost them. So just order the checks through the bank and pick them up at the bank.

Unfortunately mailing large important checks is not secure unless you use (slow) USPS Registered Mail option, which is an add-on service for First Class Mail. The envelope or package then goes in locked boxes all along the way, and USPS takes Registrered Mail seriously. Regular First Class Mail does get lost at some low percentage rate (which may be your check). Another option for checks is Priority Mail or Priority Mail Express, both with tracking and signature with ID required as “Signature Required Restricted Delivery” option (about $20 or $30). However, Priority and Priority Express also do sometimes get lost, stolen, delayed or misrouted (had it happen), so any large checks should always be sent by Registered Mail with signature and ID required. Registered can take a couple of weeks but is the only secure way to send a check these days. (You can only use paper envelopes and paper tape for Registered – info online.) Many banks use UPS or FedEx with tracking ID and signature required for sending large paper checks, but they are not as secure as USPS Registered Mail.

If you do not use USPS Registered (just Priority, Priority Express, UPS, or FedEx), and a check is lost or stolen along the way (check the tracking frequently), to be safe you have to stop payment with your bank as soon as online tracking shows it no longer moving for a few days in their system. When sending a “bank check” or “cashiers check” (drawn on the bank itself) for payment, the bank can actually require you to buy an insurance bond for the value of the lost or stolen check (expensive) and make you wait 90 days for reimbursement. So it is actually safter to send a personal check that you can immediately stop payment on. Be aware that since USPS Registered Mail is slow, tracking is not updated frequently, you just have to be patient and wait.

Unfortunately USPS employees have been convicted of stealing regular mail that looks like it might have a check. (I’d always use a 9″ x 11″ rigid envelope.) And they do sometimes lose mail and the big city processing centers (lots of USPS Google reviews stating this). In contrast, Registered Mail doesn’t get “lost,” and if it is stolen, it is a big deal, and the Postal Inspectors get involved.

The real problem with paper checks these days is anyone handling a paper check at a business along the way to depositing it can copy the bank routing number and your account number. (So don’t write checks to landscapers, doctor’s offices, barbers, etc. because anyone that works there will have access to the check.) With the two numbers, it is possible to submit a fraudulent ACH debit to your account. There is info online about how this is done, often through a foriegn bank. While a fraudulent ACH debit can be reversed, you must report it to the bank as soon as you receive your paper statement or look at your online statement – monitor and scan your account transactions carefully for fraudulent charges. Your time to report is limited. With businesses the allowed time is VERY short (info online), so businesses should always put “ACH blocks” on all their checking, savings, and money market accounts so that only debits from authorized creditors can go through. Most banks only allow ACH blocks for businesses, but you can ask for personal accounts if you won’t be paying any bills out of that account.

However, with the new cell phone deposit system for checks, a crook doesn’t even need to submit a fraudulent ACH debit. All they need to do is take a photo of ANY check you have written to a business. Then using any graphics program, they just change the payee line and deposit the check to an account by taking a picutre of it for a phone deposit. Then they will withdraw the funds before the original real check is processed.

If you ever have a burglary but your checkbook is NOT stolen, look in the back of the checkbook. The burglars will often pull checks out of the very back, thinking you will not notice. Then if they have a reasonable copy of your signature from something else, they will cash the fraudulent checks at your bank with fake ID. They’ll do this for odd amounts like say $230, and put “landscaping” or some similar service in the memo line. Crooks who get inside elderly people’s homes using different scams also do this.

Avoid using debit cards rather than credit cards because the funds are immediately withdrawn from your bank account with debit cards (Dave Ramsey is just wrong about using debit cards). “Skimmer” devices can be used on credit and debit card scanners at gas stations and retail stores which can capture your account number if you use the slot where you swipe the magnetic strip on the card. If anything looks odd or feels loose on the scanner device, do not use it. (Skimmers look like an extra rectangular piece over the real slot.) So always use the chip option where you either “tap” (preferred) or insert the card; it is harder to capture the number with a tapped or inserted chip. With a debit card requiring a PIN to also be entered, the crooks who mount a the skimmer will often also position a tiny camera somewhere to capture the PIN being entered on the keyboard – they’ve even used high powered binoculars at gas stations.

Of course, you can always use cash for local purchases (and get a receipt). No big deal to take a few minutes to prepay with cash at a gas station to protect your card. And obviously use cash for any firearms or ammo purchases, since some leftist states are now recording gun and ammo purchases made by credit card (using a special card “merchant code” for those purchases). The vendor then also saves the extra credit or debit card charge, which they obviously like.

One might think that Ted Rall has made enough leftist money to actually OWN a home, and not still paying rent.

And as meamjojo wrote, if you sign up with your bank to do online banking, you can effectively write an “e-check” online to anyone via ACH transfer if you have their bank routing number and account number (but there may be a small charge). The banks also have other options for electronic bill pay that they can tell you about (lots of info on this online). For your utility bills , rent, mortgage, and other regular bills you can also either authorize them to bill to your credit card (safer, but they may charge ~3% for it), or authorize ACH debits to your bank account every month – but you still have to check they don’t overcharge you. Some utility and credit card companies may allow you to do e-check payments through their websites; some insurance companies also have it. As I wrote, everyone should now strictly limit mailing paper checks by regular First Class Mail; besides the possibility of loss or theft there is no tracking. The only thing I use it for is for small checks where the billing vendor provides a window envelope and printed address with a machine-readable USPS bar code below, which allows very fast USPS routing with much less chance of loss.

One more thing. When you close a bank account, mutual fund, etc., don’t have them mail you the closing check by First Class Mail, or you could have the same problems. Either tell the institution you will write youself the closing check for the exact amount remaining (best), or pick up a bank check in person (depositing it immediately), or pay to have the check sent by Registered Mail or Fed Ex/UPS if they insist, but only with signature and ID required. (I had UPS just leave a big check in their envelope on my doorstep once, so the signature/ID requirement is mandatory.) Or else just have them do a wire transfer to a new account that you alread have set up (about $30 usually). But double check the routing and account numbers, do it in real time while you wait, and have it immediately verified, since mistakes in wire transfers are a huge hassle (as opposed to mistaken ACH transfers which can be reversed). Again info on this online.

“The US is now a shithole. I’m thinking of moving to Russia.”
———————
There are still lots of good places in the US to live, and besides having to learn another language, other countries have their own problems. There is a mass movement now from “blue” leftist states to “red” conservative states. Life is still good in smaller towns in a conservattive states.

There are pages online where they rank the states from most to least conservative. Then you can look at the online US county maps for the Trump-Biden election to see which counties in that state are the “redest” – highest majority Trump. Those are also generally the lowest crime counties. If you Google it, there are also US maps showing the counties with the lowest crime rates, and you can look up the specific crime rates for towns on city-data.com.

In any case, you’ve got to be away from the big cities, which even have crime in the red states. Depending on what else you like (weather, humidity, forests or not, hunting, fishing, other hobbies) some decent possibilities are Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana (southern), Kansas, Nebraska &, South Dakota (but both cold in winter), Utah (if you don’t mind Mormons/LDS), Idaho (but now getting expensive for housing). The southeast conservative states are also OK if you avoid the cities, but I prefer Midwestern/Western culture (and speach accents) to Southern.

Wyoming is usually on the lists as very conservative, but it is remote (e.g. limited medical care), very cold in winter and windy in the east (it can drive you nuts); also flat in the east and generally a real hassle as you get older. It’s basically only for cowboys, oil/coal roughnecks, and very tough outdoorsmen . Montana is similar and is also attacting leftists in some towns like Bozeman. Oklahoma is conservative but has some odd political problems with the indian nations in the eastern part, and also may have more illegals coming up from Texas. I find Texas too hot, and the Tejano/Mexican culture sort of annoying. Colorado and New Mexico have gone way left now, so don’t bother. Arizona is “purple” now with people escaping California, and very hot in summer except the northern part. Nevada is similar to Arizona politically now, and most of the state is just high desert.

Also consider West Virginia (again, rather than Russia). It’s “rustic” and a bit redneck, but definitely worth considering also. Obviously you want to narrow down a list of places to relocate, and you can do that by doing a lot of research online. Then take some trips, stay in an inexpensive motel for a few days, drive around, go to city hall, the chamber of commerce (for maps & info), and see what feels right.

Beware that some nice small towns have gotten taken over by leftists moving out of New York, Illinois, and California (like Asheville, North Carolina), so if you see rainbow flags, women with green/pink hair around town, or a “cute” downtown area with fern bars and art shops rather than car repair shops and a gun store, be very cautious. You can talk to some locals and read the local paper to see what the politics are.

On the bright side, it happened to a piece of shit

Wow, I didn’t get my stimmi check. The African migrant La Poste hired to deliver my mail must have stolen it.

The forward thinking solution is threefold: (1) ban private banking entirely. Have all Americans and business keep an account at the Fed. Require all payments be made from your Fed account to another Fed account; (2) ban checks; (3) ban cash.

The beauty of this is you require all economic transactions take place through a government monitored Fed account.

People who would not have Fed accounts? Illegals, undocumented, criminal enterprises, drug dealers, etc. To double down on security, make the Fed accounts totally transparent to the IRS.

A few years ago my CC was billed fraudulently, only for about $20.00. I called the bank to get a new card and have the charge cancelled. It was a time when you could actually speak to another human who spoke a familiar language.

I wondered out loud why the charge was only twenty dollars? Why not two hundred dollars or more? Something worth the effort of the scammer?

Banker-ette replied the modest sum was part of the scam. That a lot of people don’t really look at their CC statements or notice a small charge. But a large one stands out. So scammers just low-ball it, figuring the victim won’t even notice, carrying it out multiple times.

I’m surprised landlords even take checks anymore. I thought most everything is account to account electronic transfer these days.

My question is why are sending checks?

LOL!!! Quis custodiet custodem?

Mr Rall’s outrage provides yet another illustration of the old adage that, “A conservative is a progressive who’s just been mugged.”

we need to nationalize the federal reserve (which is neither), seize all their assests and do a forensic audit of their books and jail all the heads of these 12 private banks, as well as seizing all of their ill-gotten gains. then and only then would what you suggest work.

the current “federal reserve” is the problem not the solution, we need to reclaim our money supply, from these banksters disguised as government officials.

I’m puzzled still writing checks? Further paychecks does any company still use checks to pay employees? The company I work for finds that quite dangerous and HR requires our banking info for immediate deposit of our pay.

Electronic banking was always the key and for some interesting history on checks and the checking system consider this page taken from an old book in my library:

Checks Obsolete

Members of the Federal Reserve warned that the nations banks could strangle on the 22 billion checks the Americans wrote each year, pointing out that in a hundred months the number of checks would double. They urged the adoption of a computer system which would automatically transfer funds between bank accounts. A person’s pay would automatically be credited to his bank account by his employer, without the writing of a check. And the regular payments which the worker owed -car payment, rent, etc-would automatically be sent to his creditors accounts when due. George Mitchell of the Federal Reserve declared it was most urgent to reform the checking system before the economy smothered under a pile of paper.
I did not know George Mitchell personally, but i did know honest and sincere bankers who shared his sentment. there was Carlos Verheck of the Kredietbank of Belgium, and Banker Keller of Germany.

As I sat with banker Keller in his Stuttgart office, i heard him heave a weary sigh, “We are being buried under paper,” he said sadly. From the doorway of his office I could see the lines of people standing impatiently before the bank tellers.
I knew back home our government was spending $350,000 a minute. The welfare program alone was costing the taxpayers more than a billion dollars a month. In a four-year period, the federal budget had increased 84% and in five years the money supply 47%.
In America, i had talked with my banker friends. without exception, every banker realized we were coming to the end of an old regime and the dawn of a new ear. Our earthly ancestors had used shells, iron, cotton, or cattle as a medium of exchange. Then gold. Now paper was becoming as antiquated as all of the obsolete systems man has used. A new system was about to dawn over the western world and it would be a number system, made possible by the birth of the computer in 1946. Canetlon pages 66-67

We are being reduced to just a number in this Big Brother society all thanks to the invention of the computer. It is why I’m constantly asking a question about the QR Code. Will the QR Code be the new system of money? Just get your own unique number and code placed on ones person either hand or forehead and viola all problems solved by way of scanning? Bankers wet dream for or coming dystopian society and thankfully it is forewarned in Book of Rev. 13.

You can also use something like Quicken Billpay (costs extra) to setup electronic transfers from your checking account.

On my CC’s I connected my bank account to each of them. Then I logon to the CC website, got to the make payment section and schedule the monthly payment. Takes maybe 2 minutes total. Saves the cost of a check, a stamp and an envelope each month plus eliminates the risk of physical theft

TIP: NEVER let your browser memorize your CC account and password! Always grab the password (hopefully a very complicated one!) from a password manager like KeePass or similar. This should help protect your accounts if someone manages to hack into your desktop/laptop or cellphone.

America is not a capitalist country, it’s a monopolistic country, and the banking industry is proof positive. Along with healthcare. What a dump.

– ‘ When thieves are this brazen, law and order is breaking down. ‘

Supposed paper ‘law scheme was conccoted by cons, for their ‘order’ schemes, to ‘break down’ good people and earth. Around twelve hundred years ago [not two thousand] began scheming to take over earth, made labels for selves i.e. ‘rabbis’ and ‘he-brew, and scrawled monotheism schemes, then ‘state’ and ‘court and ‘mil i tary schemes, along with false ‘money. Their ‘media’ and fake polite ‘society, to distract from themselves, claim to be ‘govt’. – Most dont label themselves ‘jews, they label themselves ‘state or ‘judges or ‘lawyers. We lived a milion years before, remember cavemen. Their ‘police’ have – no duty to protect public, their ‘sheriffs depts sheme with ‘state and ‘court co-cons, to subvert others from right self and territory defense, including against ‘state and ‘sheriff cons, and let in mass in-migrants, though, its on people to stop. Notice twenty thirty years ago you could ‘go to jail’ on writing a bad check, now mass theft and’electro theft, same time the cons spy everything, because that was and is the scheme.

– ‘ Check fraud through mobile banking is costing the banking system over $1 billion a year.’ .. .
.. ‘ You really have to wonder whether this technology is ready for prime time. ‘

The cons ‘electronic everything’ is for their control scheme, zero value zero secure, same as false paper money. They don’t lose anything because its digital nothing or only paper. People waste life on false ‘money’ are who lose whatver labor work when whatever bogus ‘banks don’t refund theft.

– ‘ (For the record, I would be happy to testify against this creep in court.) ‘

Supposed ‘courts are a fraud, exist to protect criminals, seventy percent of cons fronting as ‘courts are cabal, scheme to destroy good resister type people, so easier for cabal to off everyone. its not about ‘bribery, its destruction scheme. ‘tv court or police, worst perpaganda, distracts from reality. Their concocted fake labels obvious, suggest make note

jud i shal – judicial
jud i suree – judiciary
JUD-g-E
im-partial – impartial
in-dendant – independant

The word ‘judge’ is a con. The label should be neutral arbiter or neutral analysis service, with the word nuetral as part of label, ‘judge’ doesn’t mean ethic. The cons ‘courts or ‘sheriffs or police schemes shouldn’t exist.

Seems some other comments are stuck ‘inside’ the cons false box, false solutions. Threat and theft and assault wont stop until people make real effort on self determination, and with some tribablism, make own directions against schemes, share info, focus local -and watch for cons, remember half the cons are female.

Appreciate the article subjects.

p.s. the comment ranking on Ted for ‘renting’ is bs. If people hadn’t sat on az on ‘zero down zero income verify loans’ and ‘bailouts’ – and mass in-migration, bogus ‘house values’ would be a quarter or less of bogus prices now, maybe he would have bought. I bet Ted was at occupy, probably wouldnt admit it since he has a media name, but bet he was there. I was at Seattle. Since then realize central location protest’ isnt really effective, more local sharing is better, but at the time was good, and better than nothing. Everyone in this territory should have, and revolt ‘covid’ con.

Shouldnt be smug commenter because you dont own anything you cant defend. No predator drone, no house. Get it. Also search kelo v. new london. private to private.

Henry – thank you very much for your exhaustive, informative post. So helpful.

Do you think that most the check fraud is coming from postal employees or bank employees? IOW, it’s an inside job? The reason I ask this is because I was sitting at a government office, filling out forms and cursing every step of the way, when it dawned on me that these offices have been forced to set up rules, regulations and extra paperwork just to combat fraud from their very employees. Who would know better about loopholes or how to scam a particular system than an employee!

“Thieves routinely rob postal workers of their master keys which will open all the USPS boxes in a particular area.”

OR the master keys are sold to the thieves by the postal workers themselves, or handed over to their low-life, criminal boyfriend for free.

Just curious what you think.

Late stage capitalism: all falls down. Everything from the banking system to the postal service gutted, strip mined to extract the last drop of profit for the oligarchs. Oh but perish the thought! The Invisible Hand of the Free Market is the very best we can ever have – the man on the TeeVee tells me so all the time. And if I keep my eyes closed – except staying ever vigilant for Marxists in the closet and negroes in the streets and queers everywhere lusting to poke my straight ass, boy howdy, watch out for that one, huh – my submission will earn me a rich reward when Jesus restores me to life after I’m dead!

As George Carlin said, America’s true dope problem is that we have so many dopes. So very many.

The financial institutions in the US are now Third World. Their IT Department’s are run by South Asians. Their customer service departments are in Southeast Asia or Latin America. Only the people at the top and employees in the Few Branches that remain live in the US. You’re getting the same fine data processing and customer service now that people in Delhi or Manila or Santiago have Bern enjoying for decades.

You’d think Civil Rights leaders would be protesting the loss of these Middle Class jobs for the Community, but I guess they’re being paid off with high income DEI officer jobs for friends and family.

“but here we’re talking about a box a few feet from the door to a Manhattan post office.”

I’d love to know why the author still continues to live in such a horrible overpriced place such as New York City?

New York State and the whole of New England have so many beautiful small to medium sized towns where the crime is low and the local mail employees are probably still white.

It seems that if a white person lives in New York City and complains about crime, they should not be taken seriously. That person is really asking for it. Is the Chrysler Building so splendid that you need to see it every day for your continued existence?

The author is lucky he was just a victim of white collar crime, the next time he might not be so lucky. Get out while you can Mr. Rall.

Your bank account can also be “pinged” like this with a tiny ACH debit of a few dollars (or less), where the crooks are trying to validate the account number and see if the charge goes through – that is why some banks are now using very long randomly generated (not sequential) account numbers. If you don’t catch it, then the next month they will debit a larger amount. That’s another reason why you have to watch your statements and report anything that looks weird at all to the bank or credit card company.

Obviously also don’t ever respond to a voice call or text where the scammers will say they are from your bank and there is something wrong with your account. Just get the person’s full name, and tell them you will call the bank yourself at their regular main number you have (to see if the issue is real) and hang up; obviously don’t call the number shown that the person is calling from or a number they give you. If they argue with you about this at all, it is likely a scam. If the scammers can get your phone number, they will sometimes call or text you after “pinging” the account and act like they are notifying you of the ACH fraud, in order to try to get your personal info. Again, don’t bite and call the bank yourself, or even go to the local branch in person to talk to the manager. One of my banks had this happen to many customers where they all had a ping to their account and then a text from the scammers requesting other info, pretending they were from the bank.

In one famous scam many years ago in Europe, the scammers simply charged small ACH debits of a few dollars to thousands of sequential bank account numbers at several banks, which added up to tens of thousands of dollars of stolen money, since a large pecentage of people didn’t contest the amounts. By the way, a lot of bank hacks like this are not reported in the press, even though they are reported to law enforcement. But if the hacks are done through foreign banks, it makes it much more difficult to reverse the ACH charges and recover the money. Wire transfer scams are a whole other situation, and yes, millions can be stolen that way (and have been), just like in the spy movies, since wire transfers are much harder to reverse.

Most people throw away their credit/debit card receipts, but then they can’t tell if they actually paid $10.97 to XYZ company (maybe a crook), and may just let the charge go through after getting the statement. Then the next month there is another larger charge from the same crooks using some other company name (often disguised as a PayPal, ebay, or Amazon charge). So it is best to just put the receipt in your wallet, and when you get home stuff them into a ziplock bag to reconcile with the statement at the end of the month.

With writing paper checks also be sure to write the correct payee and amount in the checkbook ledger or request the carbon copy type checks; otherwise you won’t be able to catch a fraudulent charge if the check is stolen in the mail and washed/copied like described in the article. For all the reason cited, I’d also be very cautious physically with a checkbook, and when not using it, keep it in a home safe or at least hidden (tell your family where) and not some easy place a burglar could find it like a top bedroom chest drawer. Again, when crooks get access to an elderly person’s house with some scam or “ruse burglary” (like saying they are from the power company), the first place they look is in the bedroom drawers.

Yes, it’s a pain to reconcile your statement every month, but only takes about 15 minutes if you’ve got the receipts, and can avoid huge problems if you are hit with false charges.

All of it aided and abetted by politicians who promise to give everything to everybody in return for a temporary gig in the marble halls of power.

Monopolies cannot happen without government support. They require that all competitors be greatly restricted or put out of business through the imposition of legal force. True capitalism (free-market capitalism) has never been allowed to operate anywhere. It is too easy for those with money to gain an advantage by buying off the politicians who make the rules and the bureaucrats who administer them.

“Do you think that most the check fraud is coming from postal employees or bank employees?”

I Googled this a while back and there are many articles about mail theft and paper check fraud online. My impression is that most of the mail theft is from common criminals stealing mail from unlocked home mailboxes, “fishing” the blue boxes like in the article, or more recently, stealing the various types of USPS box keys to open the blue boxes and the apt/condo/neighborhood home kiosks. They just arrested a crook in the Denver area who had a huge amount of mail in his home that he had stolen this way. He had so much, he hadn’t even opened most of it yet. He was obviously looking for checks to wash or scan/modify and cards (that he could activate with just an 800 number phone call). But they say he probably also was selling personal info found in the mail (including SSNs) to sell to illegal aliens and other identity thieves. With mailed bank or mutual fund statements found in the mail, a crook could also try to impersonate the person and transfer funds out of the accounts. That is one reason to have “security questions” set up with all your banks and mutual fund company – since the last four digits of your SSN, birthdate, etc. they they often ask are not secure. The security questions are stuff like the street you lived on as a child, parent’s place of birth, childhood best friend’s name, etc.

This is a very risky crime though (especially robbing USPS employees for the keys), since it can be elevated to a federal felony with years in prison, huge monetary fines, and no parole.

Yes, the articles say that there have been a few postal workers arrested for stealing mail that looks like it contains a check, new check packets (they all look the same as I mentioned), or a new credit/debit card. You can feel the cards through the envelope, which is stupid on the part of the credit card companies of course. Obviously 99.9 % of USPS employees would never consider doing this because the Postal Inspectors (still a decent law enforcement agency) will investigate, and it is a mandatory federal felony in that case, for which they will go to federal prison for years (and wreck their life). Working at the USPS, especially in nice smaller towns, is actually a decent job with good benefits, including a (now rare) pension program, so most wouldn’t want to risk that for a probably small return.

Mail “loss” does also occur though at some low percentage, often at the big city USPS regional processing centers (recently had an ebay package just disappear at the Denver processing center). Envelopes and small packages get destroyed, fall off conveyor belts or the big canvas bins, or get misrouted to somewhere else in the country for some reason, and never returned to the proper final post office (also had that happen to an important Priority Mail envelope). So that’s why I have concluded that the only way to send large paper checks and other very important documents is by (slow) Registered Mail with ID and signature required, which almost never gets lost since every USPS employee that handles the Registred Mail lock boxes along the way has to record their name. Registered Mail can be insured for up to $50,000, so gold/silver coin dealers and jewelers use it.

Bank employees are only rarely arrested for fraud on customers, but it does happen. There was a recent article about a bank employee scamming an elderly customer out of their money. But that is very rare too, since it is also a serious crime not worth the risk for most people. The banks also obviously have many systems in place to catch this, and there are cameras all over the banks watching the employees and customers.

Typical Leftist response: blame the bank. Have you, Ted Rall, ever thought the blame should be assigned to the thief? Maybe, .. the thieves should be sentenced to serve time, to take them out of circulation, so they can’t commit crimes ?????, IN MANHATTAN WHERE LEFTY VOTERS LIKE TED RALL VOTE FOR JUDGES AND DA’S THAT LET ALL CRIMINALS WALK FREE. Ted Rall, like most Leftists, see things emotionally instead of using logic, so everything he says comes out confused and bizarre. It’s not rocket science, Ted Rall. Think !!!!

Henry – thanks for your great reply, and thank goodness for the dedicated postal inspectors. You should post videos about these subjects on Youtube. People need to hear this information. Take care.

Let’s boil this problem down to its genesis.

I think Ted has a lot of unanswered questions that might shed light on his plight.

Here is Ted Rall – a man who considers himself “wise” enough on our current state of affairs to think that his opionion might have some relevance on the UNZ review – with his money in a bank. Yes, a bank! Is Ted aware of the alternatives?

And why, in any case, is Ted writing checks and using snail mail in the year 2024 when he could be transferring money electronically? If we were to ask Ted this question, then would his answer largely rest on the trade-offs made necessary by the conditions set forth by his bank?

And if Ted is as security conscious as he implies, then why doesn’t he just deposit his check directly in the slot inside the post office building? I think this is what is meant as a “best practice”. Can’t he just walk those few more steps, or is he just another Fatamerican?

Plus Ted is living in New York. And he’s living in Manhattan at that, a degenerate cesspool of human filth if there ever was one, where it is expensive to live even in squalor. How much sympathy does he expect? If Ted is a Jew, he should have at least invoked the holocaust.

So, yes, this is clearly an example of where the victim bears the greatest share of responsibility. Ted brought this all on himself. He set himself up for it, and he got what he had coming. His pathetic attempts at self-reflection will not redeem him.

Yet, though he may whine into perpetuity about his ordeal, Ted was spared the punishment he actually deserved, a variation of the type of horse-whipping that all these Manhattan honkies have coming, Non-Jew and Jew alike. And that is to not only be mugged on the way to the post office, but to also suffer the indignity of having to navigate the entire hellish bank resolution process strictly through a chat bot.

However, strangely, despite my criticisms, I still agree 100% with Ted’s larger premise. And that is that things are definitely starting to get flaky around the edges. Everywhere…

Stealing from the mail and washing checks has become an everyday thing, as is con-men calling old people on their land-lines every single day for the rest of their lives. It’s elderly people who are the primary targets, as they were with the vax and covid. My theory is pretty simple: kikes in organized crime have sufficient clout in the government, especially since Trump got in, to engage in these crimes with impunity.

I was going to be flippant and ask what a “check” was, turns out Windows doesn’t even recognize “cheque” as a valid word…

So, there is an easy solution to your problem. Don’t close your bank account.

While true, the only problem is most accounts require a decent minimum balance (i.e. $2000) otherwise their are monthly fees.

I wrote that Ted Rall should keep his account open until he had received the money since he had mentioned the bank would not return the funds IF he closed the account.

“Obviously, closing the account is the right move. But if you close your account, the bank said, they have no way to return the stolen money.”

I also wrote that, as soon as he received the money, he should close the account permanently and never transact with the bank again.

It may be that the bank would assess a monthly fee on his account if he did not maintain a minimum amount, but a few dollars/month would be a small price to pay in bringing the balance down to a token amount. Paying $30 per month for six months, even a year, would be a lot better than keeping $2000 in the account so as to avoid paying the fee. Do the math. In the meantime, he would be moving heaven and earth to get the matter resolved, not to the bank’s satisfaction, but his own.

Two steps forward, one step back. Often the winning strategy.

Could the perpetrators of this crime be some of the “new” Democrat voters that the DNC have been importing since Biden took office?

It wouldn’t surprise me if organised crime hired them to steal mail. Immigrants want jobs and is anyone paying them to be honest or are those libtard dopes assuming that these interloping migrants have the same ethical code as them?

Checks, Ted? Soooo 20th century. Obviously, the answer to this problem is … programmable central-bank digital currencies! LOL

We may not be able to afford the monthly fees. Or at least we would notice the hit, which would be equal to one large pizza or maybe two combo meals. That’s why we’re keyboard warriors. This guy is a successful comic artist and non-fiction writer. He is an Ivy League alum (Columbia) and was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He grew up in Kettering, Ohio, a suburb of Dayton. I didn’t know Dayton was big enough to have suburbs, but so it goes. The out-of-date Wikipedia articles reported that Kettering was 95 percent white in 2000 and that less than five percent of the residents lived below the poverty. The sum of this information points strongly in the direction of the idea that his parents were affluent professionals with elite educations.

The online source I located reported his net worth as at least $1 million. At least. I admit, a million isn’t what it used to be, but it’s still a lot of money. He can afford the monthly fee he might be charged if he maintains only a minimal balance. Might be charged. I am sure his rent check was stolen. But he’s a professional writer and he is using his writer’s skills to spin a sad yarn. Everybody knows, in NYC, you have to watch your back at every turn. Live and learn, bro.

Well said.

Sounds good – but it is the entire financial industry. Technology has made it much easier for people to steal. The only difference might be how they handle giving back the money. But in terms of stealing – switching banks won’t help.

Ted, I thought you were a leftist.
That guy who stole your rent, he has a human right to money to provide for his well-being. Who are you to question whether or not he needed that money?