Laser Check Printers and Counterfeit Checks

All it takes is a personal computer and a good laser printer and some guy named Vince who lives in any town America can clean out a large companies bank accounts. Due to better technology, the quality of counterfeit documents has improved in leaps and bounds. With the aid of a computer, a high-resolution digital scanner and a laser printer just about anyone can fake company checks and according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, this is becoming a huge problem.

Technology and desktop publishing along with laser printers have paved the way for fake check creation. According to the experts laser check printers are so advanced that it is near impossible to tell the real thing from a fake. Any one can purchase a laser check printer; all you have to do is have the cash. You don’t even have to prove that you are a valid business.
Counterfeit check production use to be the work of criminals who were intelligent and they needed expensive engraving and printing equipment. These days however, it is much easier to do and those who are embarking upon a life of counterfeiting checks with laser printers need only to know how to work the computer and the laser printer. What’s more is that it is cheaper to do with the constantly falling prices of good laser printers.

A decent laser printer that reproduces 300 dots per inch less than $500. A laser printer that does 600 dpi costs less than $1,000 and to most criminals this is a small investment as compared to the money they will make counterfeiting checks.
According to the FBI it is increasingly easy to fake corporate checks. The person looking to counterfeit checks starts by collecting a company’s check. They do this by either stealing one or getting one from an employee. The check is then scanned for the corporate information and signatures. The check can then be altered using the simplest desktop software. Once this is done a laser printer is used to print the check thus adding to the authentic look of the fake check. Most office supply stores carry safety check paper which adds to the rouse. Once all of this is completed most criminals go one step further and attempt to cash the checks at smaller stores, skirting detection that may undoubtedly take place at a larger corporate store or bank.

Some laser check printer manufacturers are taking steps to combat this use of laser printers. According to Xerox, they use technology in their laser printers to put the “serial number of each machine coded in little yellow dots” allowing for the tracking of documents printed on them.

No matter what strides laser check printer manufacturers make it would appear that there are those out there who would misuse it; however law enforcement is making the same strides in catching those who do.