President Donald Trump has drawn plenty of criticism for his actions during his first few months back in the White House, but there’s one executive order we should all agree with.
It requires the federal government to stop sending paper check-based payments.
This executive order is sure to be overlooked by many media outlets. It’s hardly as controversial as, say, invoking a wartime law to expedite deportations. And it’s certainly not as economically unnerving as tariff after tariff. In fact, it’s common-sense governing.
That’s why Americans would be wise to follow the Trump lead and at least stop mailing checks. I still write checks on occasion, but I haven’t put one in the mail in years. My spouse — a certified public accountant turned fraud detective for one of the largest counties in the U.S. — forbade us from putting checks in the mail after witnessing too many people and small businesses lose their savings that way.
The executive order
Trump issued an executive order titled “Modernizing Payments To and From America’s Bank Account” on March 25. It calls for the federal government to phase out paper-based payments by Sept. 30.
That goes for payments from one federal agency to another, payments to third-party vendors, and benefit payments and tax refunds issued to individuals like you and me.
Instead, the government will officially enter the 21st century by embracing modern payment methods like direct deposits, debit and credit card payments, and other electronic payment options. In other words: payment methods the rest of us have been using for decades.
Even payments made to the government — such as fees, fines, loan payments and taxes — must be electronic, at least in situations in which federal law allows the government to dictate payment methods.
There will be exceptions, though, such as for people who don’t have access to a bank account or electronic payment methods.
Perhaps in the end it will prove too onerous for a nation of 340 million people to mandate near-universal electronic payments. But for everyday folks, Trump’s executive order still offers a worthwhile takeaway.
What it means for you
In justifying his executive order, Trump touched on two of his favorite topics: fraud and waste. As the order notes:
“Mail theft complaints have increased substantially since the COVID-19 pandemic. Historically, Department of the Treasury checks are 16 times more likely to be reported lost or stolen, returned undeliverable, or altered than an electronic funds transfer (EFT). Maintaining the physical infrastructure and specialized technology for digitizing paper records cost the American taxpayer over $657 million in Fiscal Year 2024 alone.”
That first sentence downplays the reality, though.
Check washing might be a 20th-century crime that many of us watched Leonardo DiCaprio’s character commit in “Catch Me If You Can.” But it’s enjoying a renaissance these days. Meanwhile, newer, digital versions of the crime are also flourishing.
Old-school check washing typically involves using chemicals to erase ink from stolen checks and then altering them, such as by changing the payee’s name. It still happens today, but now criminals also have the option to digitally wash or even digitally duplicate checks.
In all three cases, if it’s one of your checks that was stolen or counterfeited, the result could be an authentic-looking check made out to a criminal and debited from your bank account.
Consider this:
- In January, the FBI warned the public about a significant increase in check fraud pulled off with checks stolen from U.S. mail. From 2021 to 2023, the number of bank reports related to check fraud nearly doubled.
- The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the law enforcement arm of the Postal Service, recovers more than $1 billion in counterfeit checks and money orders annually. The amount they fail to recover is, of course, untold.
- Check fraud is lucrative enough that some gangs have added it to their repertoire. Last year, for example, gang members in Philadelphia and Central Florida were among those charged with large-scale fraud involving stolen or counterfeit checks.
- You don’t just have to worry about the possibility of a check being stolen from your mailbox or the particular USPS drop box you use. Some fraudsters steal or even purchase master keys directly from USPS workers. These keys grant access to troves of mailboxes, such as all boxes at an apartment building or all blue drop boxes in an area.
- In some cases, USPS workers themselves have committed check fraud. A couple of weeks ago, a postal worker in Washington, D.C., was found guilty of stealing checks from the mail, altering them and depositing them in a bank account he controlled. He managed to rake in $1.6 million doing so before he was caught.
Suffice it to say, no check you put in the mail is safe from theft or fraud.
And if it does happen to you, the thief will likely have your money in hand before you or your bank realizes the transaction was fraudulent. As the FBI explained in its recent warning:
“Fraudsters take advantage of regulations requiring financial institutions to make check funds available within specified timeframes, which is often too short a window for the consumer or financial institutions to identify and stop the fraud. As a result, the compromised checks clear, and the funds are withdrawn by the criminal participants before the fraud is detected.”
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