A Metro Detroit woman was targeted in a new alarming check-washing scam.
Check washing is a new high-tech scam that’s costing thousands of dollars to those who are being affected.
“What is the point of putting money in the bank if the bank can’t protect it,” said victim Afreida Wade.
Wade still can’t believe it happened to her.
“This money mess all started this summer,” Wade said.
The money mess started this past summer when Wade wrote a check from her condo board association account for $525 to a Metro Detroit vendor for work that was done. But what happened to that check after it was dropped in the mail has now left the condo board association out thousands of dollars, and Wade is searching for answers.
“We immediately filed a claim with Citizens Bank as well as the Van Buren Police Department, and it has just been ongoing,” Wade said. “It’s been ongoing to the chairman of Citizens Bank, and all that we’ve been getting are a lot of answers like, ‘Okay, we’ll get right back with you, check back in a week, check back in two weeks.’ As an organization, I guess our concern is that we put our money in the bank to be safe. If Citizens Bank can’t keep our money safe, then we might as well keep it under a mattress.”
The $525 check was cashed for more than $18,000. The vendor’s name was changed, and the check was cashed in New York instead of being cashed in Metro Detroit. Investigators revealed this was a cash of check washing.
It’s a really new scam where a check is intercepted in the mail, and as the name suggests, the check was washed clean. The information you wrote out in pen is wiped away, and the check is rewritten. High-tech thieves use basic products from rubbing alcohol to nail polish remover to soak the check and work to remove the information.
“I put it in the mailbox at the post office,” Wade said. “We know that it was cashed in New York City in the Bronx in a Chase Bank.”
So far, there have been few answers from Citizens Bank, and as you can imagine, the loss of more than $17,000 is taking a toll.
“We were unable to do some maintenance stuff that was planned this summer,” Wade said. “We needed to do some work in our retention pond, and we needed some other things, so this money needs to come back from somewhere. There are 100 or so homes in our community, so this is a lot of people’s money, and we want it back.”
Local 4 reached out to Citizens Bank and was told check-washing scams are relatively new, but the scam is growing.
“There’s over $1 billion in losses last year,” said financial expert Dewey Steffen. " It’s just taking a paper check and dipping it into a chemical substance that will erase the name and maybe the dollar amount, and then it’s blank, and they go ahead and fill it in. So as much as people think that they’re doing something safe by giving a paper check as opposed to an online service check, it’s absolutely the other way around.”
To reduce your chances of being a check-washing victim, you should mail checks in secured mailboxes and make sure the check isn’t visible.
Use ink dispensed from a gel, rollerball, or fountain pen, fill in all the lines of the check and keep a close eye on all statements so you can catch any potential fraud immediately.
“The safety and security of our customers’ accounts are of the utmost importance to us, and we are sorry to hear that one of our customers was potentially the victim of check washing fraud. While we can’t comment on a specific customer, as with any case of alleged check washing fraud, we work with all parties involved to investigate and pursue recovery.”
Eleni Garbis, VP, Consumer Public Relations
Local 4 also reached out to Chase Bank, and they said they don’t comment publically on investigations.
