Cheque fraud is currently the fastest-growing financial crime. Forecasts indicate that it will increase by 25% a year. It is estimated that commercial fraud, particularly cheque fraud, costs North American
businesses more than C$20 billion a year.
Crime rings specializing in cheque fraud are constantly on the lookout for new trends and are very shrewd. They use new techniques to fraud the banking system and steal money from their victims.
There are 3 main types of cheque fraud:
counterfeiting: where cheques are not written or authorized by legitimate account holders
forgery: where stolen cheques are signed by someone other than account holders
fraudulent: where cheques are issued by account holders but intercepted and altered to change the beneficiary or amount