Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Got a call from the fraud dept

of a major bank today. Seems someone had a check of mine, trying to cash in another state, made out to them for almost seven grand.
I wasn’t too sure at first what the guy that called me wasn’t the one trying to scam me. He gave me his name and the name of the guy that was trying to cash the check.

Apparently, they had the guy whose name was on the check trying to cash it to give them his ID (drivers lic) in order to cash it. Then they told him to wait and immediately called me for verification. My phone # is on my checks.
I told him NO that I didn’t write the check.

Then the guy tells me, let me call you back. Meantime, I’m on my personal phone with my bank. The guy calls back and I put the phones to each other and my bank and him converse back and forth. Now he is e-mailing a copy of the check to my bank. When it gets here my bank told me to make a police report and then the fraud folks will have to provide the guys drivers lic to the cops. When who ever tried to cash the check wanted his drivers lic back the bank said they were going to call the cops and the dude took off. I guess I’ll see how it goes from here.

Now here’s where it gets odd. The fraud folks gave the check # to me and my bank. I go back and look for the check. It never cleared. It was made out in sept 1 to a major hospital for an out patient procedure. I got another statement in the mail a month later and wrote another check for the same amount to the same hospital a month later. The first on sept 1, the second on oct 4. Neither of the checks written to the same place had cleared in four months.
Then one turns up out of state after what my bank thinks has been "washed" and re-written.

What are the odds of that? I’m thinking inside job at the hospital, that’s all I can come up with.
Anyone else got any idea?

Sure sounds like an inside job.

Talk to your bank about the second check before somebody tries the same thing and this time gets through with it...

They are aware of it. They were just for around ten bucks. That’s the reason I just wrote the second check before taking the time to follow through on the first one. I didn’t check the statements against each other, figured if I payed em twice I’d just have a credit with them. Got to go back in Feb.

Maybe the billing system got hacked into and checks were delivered to someone. Or like you said- inside fraud or negligence in their department

Don't trust hospitals billing dept, there dumb an crooks, had something like this happen to me, pay with a credit card from now on

A lot of healthcare providers outsource their billing to a 3rd party contractor and those places typically pay very little and hire anyone who can fog a mirror.

I would call the healthcare provider and ask to speak with the billing manager, often called the director of patient accounting, to alert him/her about this. If it happened to you, you can bet that you aren't the only one who is a victim.

Frank Abagnale, the Catch Me If You Can impersonator, has worked for the FBI for years and recommends that you pay everything with a credit card to avoid any fraud or identity theft liability. Abagnale did a presentation that is available on Youtube regarding the exclusive use of credit cards. If you Google "Frank Abagnale Credit Card" you can see it for yourself.

EDIT: If you do pay with a personal check, I recommend making a copy of the invoice and the check for your records. I keep my billing invoices and payment checks for 2 years. The healthcare industry is notorious for resubmitting claims to insurance companies months after the original claims have been processed and you have paid your post-insurance balance. I had this happen last year and it took several months and multiple letters with copies of my records to get the matter resolved. Sometimes this is a mistake and sometime it is done on purpose to generate bogus accounts receivable to make the business look more successful than it really is.

Sound advice. Could be because the checks were for such a small amount that was the very reason they were targeted.

Either the hospital or your mail box.

Do some research on which ink pens to use for writing checks. There is one brand that has a model with an ink that can't be bleached out or removed. I can't remember which one it is. I'll try to find it and update this post.

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Your check was most likely targeted because it was for a small amount which means the thief had fewer characters to bleach out.
1) Use a check-writing pen that is resistant to check washing.
2) Use up all of the writing space on the check either with characters or squiggly lines, like this...

Better yet, use a credit card with automatic alerts activated any time the card is used for another layer of security.

It worked, as they got you to pay the bill twice.

If I remember correctly there was a news story a while back about a postal worker at the post office that was stealing checks as they were traveling through the postal center. Apparently he could see them through the white envelope and would take them then wash them and rewrite.

A lot good advice to heed. I hope I got lucky this time. I’ll find out more in the morning. Something like this never crossed my mind.
The banks stopping any activity on the only two checks were out so I hope I’m good to go.

I have multiple banking accounts with checks and cards for each. One is strictly for my business and the other is strictly personal.
I have another one that I use just for on line stuff with a card only. I only keep a minimum amount in it and fund it on purchase by purchase basis. I think I’ll start using it like that for everything.

Dont put checks in the mail. There are very few reasons to ever use checks these days.

Dang man

Scoundrels

Now if I hadn’t throw my teevee out 82 I could have prolly lernt this lesson off of an episode of magnesium pi. or Colombo And not be goin thu this sheet.

#lessonsthehardway

Old guys making simple things hard.

Who the he!! still writes checks?

There are some very good pamflettes from the aaarp that tells us about those nigerian money switchin scams

We use cash, checks, cards and some electronic transfers. We’ve had a few fraud issues over the years; all seemingly related to the cards. ID theft one time probably from a data breach. I think all these payment forms have their place. I am kind of ignorant about gold, though. 🤔

Check washing.

Someone steals a check out of your mailbox or post office or destination address. Simply wash the PTTOO name and amount and presto.

FWIW - Permanent markers help but are not foolproof.