Check Cooking & Baking Scams

In light of some recent fraudulent checks we have been seeing, this week’s Fraud Friday on Check Cooking or Baking scams.  While we are sure you have heard of Check Washing, which involves physically altering or removing ink from a written check.  However, scammers have taken it to a whole other level now with Check Cooking or Check Baking.  This is much more lucrative, efficient, and allows scammers to easily manufacture dozens of checks at a time.  As scammers get trickier, we need to educate ourselves, so we know what to look for.  Let’s look at how check fraud has evolved with technology.

 

Check washing has been happening for a long time, we have had numerous customers who have unfortunately found themselves victims of this scam.  With washing, a thief uses chemicals like bleach or acetone to erase or “wash” away information on the check.  Then they rewrite the check using alternate info and deposit or cash it.  These are usually either stolen from the mail or are copies of legit checks.  Some information that could be changed is Payee or amount, sometimes even signatures. Check washing typically creates one opportunity to commit fraud, and in order to steal more money, the scammer will have to procure more checks to wash.  The process can be very time consuming.  Since scamming is a career for some, I mean fraud is a business after all, there had to be a better way to do the job, right?!

 

Hence cooking/baking:

In comparison with washing, check cooking/baking is done with software rather than chemicals.  With cooking/baking, a scammer just needs to take a digital photo of a check.  From there, an inexpensive subscription to something like Photoshop or another such editing software is all that is needed for a fraudster to create numerous, very effective counterfeit checks.  This gives the scammer access to multiple checks giving them more opportunities to steal from more people.  Often, they are for smaller amounts, so they are less likely to be detected.  They use the quantity over quality strategy here, with the goal of making as much money as possible before their victims catch on to the fraud.  By the time the victims notice, the scammers could have gotten away with thousands of dollars.

 

Check fraud, whether it be washing, cooking, or baking, has been and is still on the rise.   The Dept. of Treasury’s National Money Laundering Risk Assessment estimates that if current trends continue, check fraud losses could reach $30 Billion in 2024.  Our Threat Advice software has proven to be instrumental in catching fraudulent checks since we began the Fraud Department this year.  However, it is our tellers who are on the front lines of the ongoing battle with check fraud.  Tellers are the eyes and ears of the bank, and ours have used their skills time and again to detect and deter check fraud.  With the holidays approaching, it is imperative to stay sharp and be on the lookout for more of this and all types of fraud.