Free The Art of the Steal by Frank W Abagnale

accept,” or “Do not negotiate” before or after the warning); and microprinting, a technique where words or phrases added onto the check in letters so small they are legible only under a magnifying glass. It used to be that microprinting could only be done in a straight line, but circular microprinting is now possible so you can put messages in as logos, or pictures.

    Companies always ask me, “Well, we buy two hundred thousand checks a year, or a million checks a year, or two million, how much more will these things cost me if I incorporate them?” The answer is very little. With that kind of volume, adding these features won’t add much cost. One other thing that I tell businesses is you need to secure all of your checks, not just some of them. All the time, I encounter companies that use secure features in payroll checks and accounts payable checks, but not in refund checks.

    “Why not?” I ask them.
    “Oh, they’re always for small amounts,” they say.
    Their policy should be the exact opposite. Payroll checks go to employees who you know. Accounts payable checks go to vendors who you know. But refund checks go to complete strangers. They’re the checks most in need of protection. Unfortunately, what criminals do today doesn’t enter a comptroller’s mind until his company suffers a loss.
    BUT DO THEY WORK?
    Believe me, these features really work. In 1993, Imperial Bank in California hired me to redesign its company check. The bank was having big problems with check fraud—to the tune of $3 million a year. I came in, and working with the printer, gave them some security features and helped them tighten their internal controls. The bank began to offer the new check to its customers at the same price as its regular check. It looks just like a regular check, and comes in a lot of colors and styles. The check-fraud losses fell to about $120,000 by 1996, a 96 percent decrease after three years of using the new check. This check is called SafeCheck, and is manufactured by a company that goes by the same name.
    People often come up to me and say, You design these secure checks for corporations, why don’t you design a check for me, the consumer? So I’m working to produce a secure consumer check. It will have twelve security features, including paper that reacts to twenty-four different chemicals, high resolution borders that are difficult to duplicate, white “chemical-wash detection boxes” that change colors with chemical tampering, and embedded fibers that glow under ultraviolet lights. But I’ve also told the manufacturers that whenever it takes an order, it has to verify the order with the person’s bank. If someone changes his address, that has to be verified. It makes no sense to create a secure check if any criminal can order it.
    When I design a check, I follow a little routine. I send a sample to three places: a graphics house in Australia, an Australian forensic document examiner, and a U.S. institute of technology. I ask each of them to create their best replica, so I can test how secure it is. At the institute, they select a smart student and give him access to the most sophisticated computer equipment, literally millions of dollars of gear. The last check I sent there, the student took a month’s worth of manhours to produce a good replica. That told me I had a great check. As I’ve said, nothing is foolproof, but if it takes a clever student a month with millions of dollars of equipment to produce a counterfeit, I know few criminals have a prayer.
    The other thing I learn is which features work best. Lately, I’ve been working with prismatic printing, which puts a multicolored, rainbow-like background on the check. It’s very difficult to photocopy.
    YOUR FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE IS YOU
    If we’re ever going to stop fraud, everyone has got to become a bit more vigilant. My guess would be that half of all Americans don’t bother to reconcile their bank statements. They don’t even open