In today's digital world, it might be surprising to hear that checks have become one of the most vulnerable entry points for fraud in the U.S. financial system. Fraud losses in the U.S. totaled at least $16 billion in 2025. Check fraud accounted for a growing share.
A decade ago, most people assumed checks were becoming obsolete. Direct deposit, Venmo, and tap-to-pay seemed likely to make paper payments a niche tool for landlords and grandparents. But that's not the case. Checks are still used a lot.
A check-fraud scheme is embarrassingly simple. Basically, it involves a criminal stealing mail, often straight from a residential mailbox or a blue collection box on a street corner. Federal regulators say theft of this kind has surged, providing thieves with paychecks, tax refunds, and rent payments. The thief "washes" the check by chemically stripping the ink so the payee and dollar amount can be rewritten. He or she then deposits or sells it. In some cases, thieves photograph a check and use the image to create counterfeits that pass through automated processing systems before anyone notices something is wrong.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service reported mail theft from collection boxes and receptacles rose 139 percent between fiscal years 2019 and 2023 with 38,500 such incidents in a single year. A review by the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network or FinCEN of a single six-month stretch in 2023 found more than 15,000 reports of mail theft-related check fraud.
Check fraud is caused in part by the country's failure to modernize how it handles paper checks. Even as Americans write fewer checks every year, check fraud has exploded. FinCen received more than 680,000 suspicious-activity reports tied to check fraud in 2022, nearly double the year before. The F.B.I. has said such reports nearly doubled between 2021 and 2023. Check fraud is one of the fastest-growing avenues for financial crime.
By some estimates, 90 percent of mail theft is never reported at all. The victims are rarely equipped to absorb the loss. These include retirees on fixed incomes, small businesses waiting on a single overdue invoice, government agencies trying to get benefits into the hands of people who need them. The cheapest, most effective protection would be to move payments off paper and out of the mailbox.
In the meantime, financial institutions are working to reduce the problem. Credit unions see it up close because their members are consumers, not corporations with fraud departments and dedicated compliance teams. A retiree who mails a check to pay a utility bill has none of the protections a large company can build into its payment systems. In response, America's Credit Unions and the American Association of Credit Union Leagues are partnering with America Saves on a new education campaign called "Check Yourself: Stop Check Fraud Before It Starts."
The campaign runs throughout August. Each week it focuses on a different theme. These include explaining what check fraud looks like and why mailed checks can be vulnerable. It also offers practical habits people can use to protect themselves before money leaves their accounts and what to do after becoming a victim, such as acting quickly to report the crime.
Credit Unions also are backing the STOP Payments Fraud Act, bipartisan legislation that would give financial institutions more time to hold and investigate suspicious checks and wire transfers before funds are released. The policy change will make the system harder to exploit.
Simple steps can reduce consumers' exposure to check fraud. These include locking the mailbox and taking outgoing mail directly to the post office instead of leaving it in a street collection box. Also, people should move recurring payments to electronic transfers.
A national education campaign paired with legislative advocacy is what's needed to stanch the growing problem of check fraud.
Kathleen Coulombe is Chief Advocacy Officer of America's Credit Unions.