[Gllug] OT: Scam

[John Winters]

On Mon, 01 Nov 2010 12:38:29 +0000, Philip Hands <phil at hands.com> wrote:
[snip]
> I have a feeling cheques never irreversibly clear these days.

It's a while since I've worked with banks, but it certainly used to be the
case that one of the rock-solid dependable things was that once a cheque
was cleared it was cleared.  The same cannot be said of just about any
other kind of payment.  It's the international money transfers that you
need to be careful of, which can almost always be clawed back.

> It seems that many of these scams use stolen genuine cheques, which are
> then washed to remove the original amounts and payee, so you are sent a
> cheque drawn against a real legitimate business, with a valid signature.

One of the main security features of cheques is that the background ink is
extremely water-soluble.  Try running a spare one under the tap to see. 
This makes it incredibly difficult to wash off the payment details without
invalidating the cheque.

John

-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug