When a person’s wallet or purse is stolen, very often, so is his or her checkbook. Taking a person’s checkbook is one of the oldest and simplest ways a thief can steal your identity – and your money. And the truth of the matter is that you can have the best identity theft protection on the planet, but if the thief has a good fake ID, he can wipe your bank account clean and write rubber checks all over town.
To prevent this from happening, many people whose checkbooks were stolen place stop payments on the checks that were in the book. This will allow the bank to refuse payment of the check when it is presented. A lot of people look at this action as sufficient to stop identity theft.
But this isn’t the case. Banks will only honor the stop payment order for up to six months. You may think that someone wouldn’t be able to cash a check after six months, but you might be surprised. A bank might just let it slide through.
To stop this, you may be thinking, “I’ll just place another stop payment.” But can you afford to pay a fee every time you have to place a stop payment order?
Your best bet is to close the bank account, and open a new one. Make the bank aware of the situation, and ask that your old account be flagged. You may want to get a statement on the account and review it carefully before you close it, and then again after it has been closed for a couple of months, just to be sure no checks have been honored on the account.
Remember: Thieves are constantly on the lookout for new ways to fool consumers and take advantage of them. Staying one step ahead of them will go a long way in keeping you from falling victim.
