In addition to the recent postage rate increase that took effect on Sunday, this news article serves as yet another reason to encourage your customers to pay electronically rather than mailing a paper check.
In this example of check fraud, criminals steal checks from home mailboxes (it’s not like the red flag being up doesn’t give it away!) or from blue postal service mailboxes and chemically “wash” the checks to alter the payee name. In some cases, they also change the amount on the check.
Warn your customers
It might be wise to warn your customers about this practice and encourage them to be careful when mailing checks. They can avoid this by dropping their mail at a post office, but that’s not always convenient.
The better idea would be to encourage them to find other ways to pay rather than mailing a paper check.
Encourage electronic payments
In addition to the risk of paper checks being washed or stolen, mail payments can now take several days to reach your office, even when mailed locally. Electronic payments, whether bank drafts or online payments, reduce the risk and ensure prompt delivery.
To this end, you will want to take every opportunity to encourage your customers to switch to electronic payments. If they call to complain that they were charged a late fee because their check arrived late, offer to waive the penalty if they sign up for bank drafts. Offering incentives to switch to electronic payments (and ebilling, while they’re at it) is another way to encourage more customers to stop mailing checks.
What has worked for you?
If you’ve had success in getting customers to switch to electronic payments, I’d love to hear how you did it. Please send an email to let me know.
Is your business office operating as efficiently as possible?
If you’re unsure if your business office is as efficient as it could be, this is one of the things I can advise you on after completing a business review. Please give me a call at 919-673-4050 or email me at gary@utilityinformationpipeline.com for more information.
© 2026 Gary Sanders