May 7, 2010, Newsletter Issue #218: Misplaced Checks?

Tip of the Week

If you’ve recently moved, you might discover you’ve misplaced your box of checks. Changes of address are a good time to reorder checks anyway—you can probably get by with your current check book if your move was a local one, but you’ll avoid a lot of hassle by ordering your new cheap checks early and using the new ones right away. In some cases, using the old checks in your current checkbook isn’t the problem—it’s figuring out what happened to the other blank checks you had tucked away before the move. Did they accidentally get thrown away? Were they pilfered from the home in the confusion of packing and moving? Maybe they got left behind?
If your old checks have gone missing completely, it’s a very good idea to get in touch with your bank right away and report them missing. You may be required to fill out a form or cancel out the series numbers from those checks to avoid becoming a victim of check fraud. Let your bank know immediately that you can’t locate that collection of checks—many banks have policies that guard you against fraud in these cases as long as there’s advance notification. You may only have misplaced the old checks, but as a just-in-case measure you’ll rest easier knowing the bank is on the lookout for fraud if those old checks somehow fell into the wrong hands in the chaos of your move.

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