CHAPTER IX

GREATEST DANGER TO BANKS

Check-Raising Always a Danger--A Scheme Almost Impossible to
Prevent--The American Bankers' Association the Greatest Foe to
Forgers--It Follows Them Relentlessly and Successfully--Chemically
Prepared Paper and Watermarks Not Always a Safeguard--Perforating
Machines and Check Raisers--How Check Perforations Are Overcome--How an
Ordinary Check Is Raised--How an Expert Alters Checks--How Perforations
Are Filled--Hasty Examination by Paying Tellers Encourages
Forgers--The Way Bogus Checks Creep Through a Bank Unnoticed--A
Celebrated Forgery Case--Forgers Successful for a Time Always
Caught--Where Forgers Usually Go That Have Made a Big Haul--A
Professional Crook Is a Person of Large Acquaintance.


Raising checks has become the greatest danger to the banks. There is
no comparison between raising checks with a genuine signature and
forging the signature itself, so far as ease of execution is
concerned. After many years of arduous work and after great
expenditures of money the banks have to admit sorrowfully that if a
man wants to raise a check he can do it; and the detection, while, of
course, inevitable when the paid check returns to the depositor, is
not immediate enough to prevent the swindler from getting away with
the money.