[Teligacio]

Wednesday December 1, 2010

Many ways to ‘wash’ or tamper with cheques

By ISABELLE LAI
isabellelai@thestar.com.my

PETALING JAYA: Fraudsters can use many ways to “wash” cheques or tamper with them to make fraudulent withdrawals. A representative from a leading producer of writing, drawing and colouring products said the culprits could use erasers, ethanol or acetone-based chemicals, bleach and other chemicals to “wash” or tamper with the cheques.

Faber Castell marketing manager Andrew Pang, who was asked about the recent wave of “cheque hijacking” complaints, where victims had so far lost a combined total of over RM50,000 to fraudsters, said using a gel pen was the most cost-effective way of preventing “washing” of cheques.

“The gel ink permeates the paper and cannot be erased, whereas the wrong ink technology would easily wash away when such chemicals are used,” he said. “Gel pens will prevent cheque fraud from the common ways of cheque washing,” he said. Pang said the company was working with a local private bank to promote usage of the pen, and was in discussions with other local financial institutions as well.

The Star reported yesterday that numerous complaints have surfaced that cheques sent by mail had been intercepted and tampered with, resulting in senders losing money to fraudsters. The MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Michael Chong said he received five such cases so far.