Eli5, how do checks work. Especially now that we can deposit them via phone now. What stops us from creating (e.g., photoshooting) fake checks all day.

Question

Eli5, how do checks work. Especially now that we can deposit them via phone now. What stops us from creating (e.g., photoshooting) fake checks all day.

In: Economics

Answer 1

You can make your own check in Photoshop (with real numbers on the bottom) and it will work just fine. They are inherently massively insecure, and banks don’t even check signatures for values below their floor amount. https://www.wsj.com/articles/catch-me-if-you-can-scam-artist-has-a-warning-for-todays-consumers-1506002560