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Paper checks may feel old-school, yet they remain the easiest gateway for thieves. The U.S. Treasury reports that check-fraud suspicious-activity filings have climbed 385 percent since the pandemic, while 63 percent of companies faced attempted or actual check fraud in 2024, according to the Association for Financial Professionals’ 2025 survey.occ.govafponline.org Those numbers tell a blunt story: even as businesses adopt ACH and virtual cards, the humble check still opens a back door to five- and six-figure losses.
The phone lit up in the back office of Sunshine Custom Cabinets on a Thursday afternoon.
Co-owner Angela Moreno glanced at the caller ID from her bank and expected a routine wire inquiry. Instead she heard:
“Ms. Moreno, six checks just cleared your account for almost ten thousand dollars each. Can you confirm them?”
Angela had mailed only three checks that week, none over $4,500. Somewhere between the post-office drop box and her suppliers’ lockboxes, thieves had “washed” the envelopes, bleached the ink, and rewritten the checks for a cool $59,821.32—wiping out two payroll cycles in minutes.
The next 48 hours blurred into police reports, fraud affidavits, and tense conversations with employees wondering if Friday’s pay would arrive. The bank eventually credited most of the money, but cash flow froze for nearly a month, and the team sank forty billable hours into cleaning up—a cost no insurance policy reimbursed.
Check fraud has morphed from fax-era nuisance to organized, AI-enhanced side hustle. The good news: consistent, unglamorous discipline—secure mailing, rapid reconciliation, and an automated pre-clearance layer—sends fraudsters looking for softer targets. Angela calls that Thursday “the most expensive lesson I never budgeted for.” Tighten your routine today, and you won’t need the same wake-up call.
Need a practical walkthrough of daily controls—minus the jargon? Talk with our Treasury Management team about fitting these layers to your workflow before your next envelope hits the mail.
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