Paperhanger: Meaning, Origin, and Types

Paperhanger refers to the unlawful or criminal actions of forging a cheque to acquire funds from an individual or company that doesn’t even have the money. This practice takes advantage of the period between the cash released by the financial institution when the cheque is cleared and the issuing of the money. There is no precise time frame to indicate where the term paper hanger was first coined and used.

Some of the common types of cheque frauds are covered below.

Forgery

This is the most common method that criminals use to steal from a financial institution. This can be in the form of forging a person’s signature, altering the information on a genuine cheque, e.g. adding new figures or counterfeiting a check to make it look real.

Embezzlement

This technique is used by most paper hangers, whose sole mission is to steal and run. Embezzlement is usually done on a broader scale, e.g. like in a company where some people cook firm records as they take funds from it.

Abandonment

Some smart paper hangers use this method to deposit a dubious cheque into their account at the end of a business day. When the bank makes the funds available, they proceed to withdraw it before the financial institution gets informed that the cheque is terrible quickly.

Over the years, several measures have been taken to combat the menace of the fraudsters. Some of these methods include.

Financial institutions have made it possible for a cheque to be cleared on the same day it was deposited. This will prevent the release of virtual funds to be made withdrawable when a fake check is used.

Since a bank can’t know if a client’s cheque has been altered, the bank makes sure to inform its client if some of their checks are being used for a transaction. If the transaction is not authorized, then the bank will block it.

The evolution of technology has made it quite hard for funds to be released to anybody, e.g. from a company without the authorization of whoever is in charge. Before money can be released, a set of guidelines and measures need to be put in place, e.g. facial recognition, eye scanning, or the use of complex passwords.

Some companies are taking measures to combat fraudsters by putting in place measures that would also prevent company employees from stealing funds. They include limiting the number of times transactions are made in a week or offering transactional bank accounts statements before every sale.

Paper hanging is still a scourge in the present time, but the evolution of technology and new innovative ways to prevent them have been introduced. It’s only a matter of time before they become a thing of the past. Paperhangers only think of themselves and the monetary gains they will achieve. The crimes they commit can be dire if they target a company or firm since stealing funds from such a place can lead the company to go under. This will, in turn, lead to unemployment, which will affect quite a lot of people.