Writing your account number on your checks when making payments is fairly common practice. Traditionally, many companies ask that their customers include their account numbers when paying their bills to avoid having payment delayed or not being credited to the account at all. There are, however, just a few things that you need to know about your rights, how to protect yourself and be smart when writing your checks.
A potential thief doesn’t have the security code located on the back of your credit card, but he or she still has plenty to work off of with all of this information on your check, including:
- Your name and your spouse’s name (if you are married).
- Your address
- Possibly your telephone number
- Name of your bank
- Bank account number
- Bank routing number
- Credit card account number (if you include it)
A potential thief can even figure out what kind of credit card you have by simply looking at who you have made the check out to. There’s more than enough information on a check like this for a crook to do damage.
But one critical piece of information that you need to avoid is writing your social security number on your checks. In certain instances, you might need to add your social security number to your check, but try to avoid it if at all possible.
A few more tips include putting your work phone number on your checks instead of your home phone number instead, and, if you have a P.O. Box, use that address rather than your home address.
It might seem a bit paranoid, but the less “real” information a thief has about you, the less chance he or she will have of making your life miserable!
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