Local News

Smile for the Check Casher

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RALEIGH — Five-hundred-million checks are forged in the United States every year. The fraud costs businesses $10 billion dollars, costs that are passed along to the rest of us. A woman in southeast Raleigh hopes to curb thosenumbers, and she has a plan to foil a would-be forger.

It happens everyday. People pass forged checks. Rosa Collins has an ideashe hopes will prevent forgery. She says putting your picture on yourcheck will stop people from taking your check, and prevent fraud.

"This way no one can cash your check," Collins says. "It can be stolen,but they cannot cash your check."

At Collins' request Nationsbank put her picture on her check, now she's trying to get other banks in North Carolina to do the same for their customers,a move she believes will help prevent fraud.

In September, someone passed five forged checks at local golf stores. Manager Jeff Hall says the pictures are a good idea since the majority of his fraud problems comes from checks.

"None of us are ever immune," Hall says, "but anything like this thatcould help certainly would be well appreciated."

Raleigh Police agree that pictures could deter crime. Detectives hope thenew checks will make criminals face the fact that crime doesn't pay.

Right now the cost of the checks with pictures are high, around $47 dollars for one box of 200 checks. Collins hopes when she works with thebanks, they will be able to come up with a plan to lower the price.

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