Stolen Checks Are for Sale Online. We Called Some of the Victims

Related article from the same series: We Can’t Stop Writing Paper Checks. Thieves Love That. [0]

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/09/business/check-fraud.html

We have had a spate of mailbox thefts in and around Boston for many years now, sometimes right at the Post Offices themselves. The police set up stings and traps and catch one group, and then another group comes along and does the same thing. The USPS even replaced all of the old swinging door blue mailboxes with supposedly secure boxes that take letters only; the thieves simply switched up their techniques including stealing "universal keys" from postal workers.

https://www.wcvb.com/article/thief-uses-key-to-steal-from-us...

The thing I didn't like about the second article ("We Can’t Stop Writing Paper Checks. Thieves Love That") is it implicitly blames consumers for the problem - how dare we use paper checks! As if we have a choice - many businesses such as contractors and government agencies ONLY take checks. Even if an alternative is offered such as Zelle or PayPal they have their own vulnerabilities and sometimes fees, such as the online payment services used by our municipal government.

Earlier this year I advised my parents to start using their bank's Bill Pay feature as an alternative to writing checks, and the bank screwed up, failing to send out about a half dozen checks while claiming that they did and not having any mechanism for proof of delivery.