My wife wrote a check to our granddaughter for her birthday at the end of September and mailed it to her in her card. She never received it, stolen mail! Monday of this week, in my email, my bank sent a notice that I had a check coming through the system for several thousand dollars. That notice was generated from my setting up alerts on my account. I went to the bank right away and they stopped the check. They had an image of the check the next day, the bad guy(s) had washed the check and rewritten it to one of their accounts.

I had set an alert on my account (you can do this online) with my bank that any check over $1.00 would alert and send me an email notice. By doing this I see all checks while they are still pending and the bank can stop a check if needed. If I did not have alerts set, I would not have seen the transaction until Dec. 1 when my checking account statement was issued. That would have been too late and the money would probably have been gone. I do the same for deposits and account balance. You can also have it sent as a text message.

I also ordered special pens from Amazon today for all future check writing. Uni Ball Signo 207 Black Retractable Gel Pens 5 Pack with Ultra Micro 0.38mm Points, Uni Ball Fraud Proof.

I strongly recommend you set up alerts in your accounts and pass this message on to anyone else you think would benefit