Check washing project
A Brief Introduction
How would you like to hand someone a blank check? Pretty dumb, right? Well check washing is a growing problem and it essentially puts a blank check in your name in the hands of criminals that are more than willing to fill out any dollar amount to their own bank accounts. Check washing is the process of taking a check that's already been filled out, removing the ink from a pen, then re-writing in a new dollar amount and recipient.The purpose of this project is to show how easy it is to wash a check and to raise awareness of the best defenses against check washing. In the following pages you will see that I've written out eight checks out to myself and attempted to "wash" the checks in order to write in new dollar amounts. The main target of this experiment is to see what pen defends against check washing the best.
I'm going to test four separate pens to see how well (or poorly) they react against check washing. I will use each pen to write two separate checks; one check will be washed with nail polish remover, and the second check will be washed in 91% isopropyl alcohol.
Meet the Pens
The following are the pens that will be used:
Bic Velocity Retractable Gel Pen (black). Because this is a gel pen, the ink formulation is completely different from then generic bic round stic.
Generic Bic Round Stic (black). This is by far the most common pen out there mostly because it is so cheap and so available at stores.
Sanford Expresso Extra Fine (black). I'm not sure if this is made anymore, but the pen is unique because it uses a felt tip to dispense the ink rather than a ball.
Pilot Precise Rolling Ball Extra Fine (blue). I picked this pen for two reasons: it's blue and the ink is very "wet" -- meaning that the ink comes out and does not dry immediately.
Meet the Checks
Here's what each check looks like after being written in its respective pen. Because I made two checks per pen (one for alcohol washing and one for nail polish remover washing) only one check is shown below for each pen.
Check #508 (#513 not shown)
Bic Velocity Retractable Gel Pen
Check #509 (#514 not shown)
Generic Bic Round Stic
Check #512 (#515 not shown)
Sanford Expresso Extra Fine
Check #516 (#517 not shown)
Pilot Precise Rolling Ball Extra Fine
Meet the Tools
Obviously tools are required for this project. It is important to realize how common these tools are and how easy it is for just about anyone to check wash, and it is certainly not something the government can regulate or keep tabs on. 
91% Isopropyl Alcohol solution and nail polish remover. The effectiveness as solvents of both these solutions were tested.
Electrical tape, scotch tape, masking tape, clear label protection tape. Many times check washers will place tape over a signature on a check in order to keep the signature from washing. I tried these four different types of tape to determine how effective they were at protecting certain areas of the checks.
The pan above was used to be the container to hold the checks during washing, the tongs were used to remove and hold checks after being washed, and the closepins and plastic folgers can were used to store washed checks while they dried.
