First Financial Bank discusses increase in check fraud, offers advice to avoid falling victim

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) – Local banks say they have seen a rise in fraud, specifically check fraud. It’s something that can happen to anyone.

Austin Bryan with First Financial Bank told News 3 at Six they are primarily seeing a lot of bad actors washing checks.

“They’re taking a check, they’re lifting the information off of it and replacing it with different information and then presenting the checks at other Banks,” Bryan said. “I don’t think people understand that when they issue a check, they’re putting their bank’s routing number and their personal accounting number out into the universe and all it takes is one bad actor to grab that information and they can alter that check in a way that will allow them to benefit from the way that checks written.”

After talking to their competitors, First Financial Bank learned they were experiencing the a lot of the same problems. These local banks recently met with the FBI to discuss the topic.

“We called the FBI and said ‘guys there’s a problem. We don’t know if it’s occurring in the post offices or by post office employees, but it needs attention.’ So we brought several of our local banks together along with the FBI and along with the postal inspectors to share with them how much of it we were seeing and the detriment that is causing our customers and the financial institutions here locally. So we were very fortunate that they were willing to come sit down and talk about it,” said Bryan.

He says there are ways to avoid falling victim to the crime. Bryan says if possible, businesses and individuals should avoid writing checks and especially avoid putting them in the mail.

“If you do mail a check, please do not put it in a window envelope that’s going to go through the post office with flashing lights saying here’s an opportunity to steal some money,” Bryan said. “I would encourage you to put it in a FedEx envelope and overnight it to protect yourself. It’s just you’re really playing with fire. You put a check in the mail.”

Watch the full interview with Bryan in the player above.