Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, September 25, 1993 TAG: 9309250017
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARTIN J. MOYLAN KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: ST. PAUL, MINN. LENGTH: Medium
A forged corporate check that would get by most people, including bank tellers.
"It's pretty amazing what off-the-shelf PC technology can do these days," said Timothy Wise, Northwest Airlines' director of accounts payable. "It's frightening."
Wise was one of some 40 executives presented with bogus corporate checks at the seminar, sponsored by Standard Register, a secure documents business.
The executives heard forger-turned-security-expert Frank Abagnale chronicle how any bank or company using checks and other documents that can be easily reproduced or altered is an easy mark for today's technologically adept crooks.
Armed with personal computers, image scanners, color laser printers, and plentiful supplies of check paper, criminals are bilking corporate America out of billions of dollars every year, Abagnale said. Any document of value is a possible target - bus passes, coupons, traveler's checks, gift certificates.
But the most popular targets of forgers are corporate refund and bank cashier's checks. They can be scanned, and their amounts altered and routing numbers changed so the checks are sent to the wrong Federal Reserve Bank districts for processing. That delays the discovery of the crimes. And with a big-buck corporate account, it can be weeks before an auditor discovers a scam like the transformation of a $33 check into a $33,000 check.
In 1983, the FBI investigated 1,825 cases in which a single counterfeit check for more than $100,000 was passed. In 1991, it looked into 26,931 such cases.
"Twenty years ago, forging checks was a very expensive and hard thing to do," said Abagnale, 45, who forged some $2 million in documents by the time he was 21. "You needed skill and time. Today you can create a check in 12 minutes."
Technology - and common sense - provide ways for businesses to protect themselves.
The people who accept checks at the point of sale or bank counter should know that virtually all checks are perforated. If a check's edges are all smooth, it's most likely a forgery, he said.
Perhaps most importantly, they should look for routing numbers that don't make sense. On any check payable through a Virginia bank, for example, the first two digits of the coding at the bottom of the check should be 05. (For Virginia credit unions and thrifts, it's 25.)
There are also many security measures to fight document forgers. They include security fonts that make the altering of amounts difficult or impossible, watermarks, and security paper that produces the word "Void" repeatedly whenever a documents is scanned, copied or treated with chemicals.
Abagnale warned that most states say the party responsible for a bad check - other than the crook - is the one in the best position to prevent the fraud from occurring.
by CNB