Disputed Handwriting Part 3

But the effect of the correction must be that it makes the instrument conform to the intention of the parties concerned, nor must they alter the legal sense of the instrument. Memoranda made on the margin of the note for the convenience of the holder and merely explanatory of some circ.u.mstances connected with the note are immaterial. The erasure of words immaterial to the legal sense of the instrument or inserted by mistake, is also immaterial.

Where an alteration is in itself immaterial it will not void an instrument even though made with fraudulent intent.

In Missouri it has been held that any alteration material or immaterial, made fraudulently or innocently, avoids a note in the hands of one who made the alteration. But in a later Missouri case, it is held, that the addition of the signature of a married woman without a separate estate to a note already issued was a nullity and without legal effect and therefore to be considered as no alteration and not to discharge the original parties.

CHAPTER V

HOW TO WRITE A CHECK TO PREVENT FORGING

How a Paying Teller Determines the Amount of a Check--Written Amount and Amount in Figures Conflict--Depositor Protected by Paying Teller--Chief Concern of Drawer of a Check--Transposing Figures--Writing a Check That Cannot Be Raised--Writers Who Are Easy Marks for Forgers--Safeguards for Those Who Write Checks--An Example of Raised Checks--Payable "To Bearer" is Always a Menace--Paying Teller and an Endors.e.m.e.nt System Must Be Observed in Writing Checks--How a Check Must Be Written to Be Absolutely Safe--A Signature that Cannot Be Tampered with Without Detection--Paying Tellers Always Vigilant.

Among the casual patrons of the average bank there is a superst.i.tion that in presenting a check at a teller's window the amount of the check shall be determined by the amount spelled out in the body of the check, without regard to the figures written at the top or bottom of the slip.

Nothing could be farther from the facts as they are accepted at the bank window. As a matter of fact, when a check made out in this erroneous way comes to a teller's window he is most likely to refuse to pay either amount. There is no law, written or unwritten, to justify the paying of the amount spelled out in the body of the check, regardless of the group of figures on its face. This figure group is designed merely to check and justify the written amount, but if there is a discrepancy between the two amounts there is nothing to indicate that it is not the written amount that is wrong and the figure group that is right.

Under such circ.u.mstances the chief duty of the teller is to protect the depositor who has drawn the check on his bank. The person who presents the check for payment manifestly has been a party to the mistake in not having read over the check carefully before receiving it. If the payee is unknown to the teller and if the discrepancy is at all material, the teller turns the check back with the advice that the payee look up the drawer and have the error corrected.

In many cases of discrepancy between the two amounts on the face of a check the sum involved is the fractional part of the dollar at the end of the chief figures. This comes about through the drawer's concern over the main figures in the check. He is likely to write the amount in letters on the center line of the body of the check, affixing the fractional part of a dollar in the form of 100th parts of that unit.

In writing the checking group in figures at the upper or lower corner of the slip, his chief concern is with the dollars and in his care he is likely to overlook the odd cents first entered on the face of the paper. Or if he attempts to write the figures "74" cents in repet.i.tion it is likely that they may be transposed to "47" cents in the operation.

How to write this check in order that it may not be tampered with and "raised" is something that has held the attentions and invited the inventive talents of many people, in and out of business. Even when the best of the chemical papers are used in the bank check the drawer of the paper may have not the slightest protection from "raising" at the hands of an expert. The manner in which the written and figure amounts on the face of the check are placed makes the material alteration of the amount easy beyond question.

For instance, the man who writes with a free, flowing, rounded hand and leaves roomy s.p.a.ces everywhere between words and figures becomes an easy mark for a forger. This man is called upon to draw his check for $4, even. He takes his check book and in the dollar line writes the word "four" in his rounded hand, simply filling the rest of the lined s.p.a.ce with the plain flourish of his pen. Then in the upper corner of the check he writes the attesting figure $4, with a dash after it. That makes it a cinch for an expert check raiser to make it $40 or $400 or $4,000.

Manifestly the only safeguard for such a check as this, even if it be drawn upon chemical paper, is for the drawer to follow close upon the written "four" with the blocking "No-100th" dollars, using the same fraction as closely after the figure "4" in the corner of the check.

To leave no possible room after a final written or figure amount on a check is the best possible precaution against raising it. For with many checks the printed warning "Not good if drawn for more than one hundred dollars," is a worthless precaution. In the above example it is so, for the reason that raised as it is the amount still is within the limit. Had the check been drawn in the same style for "six"

dollars, it would have been more easily and profitably raised to "sixty." In the same general manner a slovenly "two" may be raised to "twenty," "three" may be "thirty," "five" is made "fifty," "seven"

becomes "seventy," "eight" becomes "eighty," and "nine" is transformed into "ninety"--all without erasures and without leaving telltale marks upon a chemical paper.

In this way the average check which is made payable "to bearer" may be a potential menace in a slow course through a dozen hands. While a bank may require the holder of a "bearer" check to indorse his name upon the back, that indors.e.m.e.nt means nothing to him. The check is payable to the bearer and the teller must pay it if it appears all right and he is certain of the signature at the bottom.

For the average man who may write his checks at a desk, and who may be willing to observe some system in the writing, perhaps the safest and cheapest protection for his paper is to repeat in red-ink figures the amount for which the check is drawn, placing those figures on the signature line at the bottom in such a manner that the black-ink signature will be woven through the red-ink group. Virtually there is no way of getting around this form of duplicated amount. The red figures show plainly through the signature and cannot be changed without affecting the form and character of the signature itself. To affect a signature in this way is to call attention to the fraud instantly. A man may make a shaky mismove of the pen somewhere in the body of the check, and if it is not too prominent a teller may take a chance and pa.s.s it; but he will shy at a signature which isn't what it ought to be--that subtle sixth sense of the old teller prompts him to it before he knows why, and a paying teller is always vigilant.

CHAPTER VI

METHODS OF FORGERS, CHECK AND DRAFT RAISERS

Professional Forgers and Their Methods--Using Engravers and Lithographers--Their Knowledge of Chemicals--Patching Perforated Paper--Difficult Matter to Detect Alterations and Forgeries--Selecting Men for the Work--The Middle Man, Presenter, and Shadow--Methods for Detecting Forgery--Detail Explanation of How Forgers Work--Altering and Raising Checks and Drafts--A Favorite Trick of Forgers--Opening a Bank Account for a Blind--Private Marks on Checks no Safeguard--How a Genuine Signature Is Secured--Bankers Can Protect Themselves--A Forger the Most Dangerous Criminal--Bankers Should Scrutinize Signatures--Sending Photograph with Letter of Advice--How to Secure Protection Against Forgers--Manner in Which Many Banks Have Been Swindled--Points About Raising Checks and Drafts That Should Be Carefully Noted.

A professional forgery band consists of first, a capitalist or backer; second, the actual forger, known among his a.s.sociates as the "scratcher"; third, the man who acts as confidential agent for the forger, known as the "middle man"; fourth, the man who presents the forged paper at the bank for payment, known as the "layer down" or presenter.

When it is necessary to have a capitalist or backer connected with a band he furnishes the funds for the organization, frequently lays out the plans for work and obtains the genuine paper from which forgeries are made. He will, when necessary, find the engraver, the lithographer and most important of all, the "professional forger," who will do the actual forgery work.

The professional forger has, as a rule, considerable knowledge of chemicals, which enables him to alter checks, drafts, bills of exchange, letters of credit, or to change the names on registered bonds. He is something of an artist, too, for with a fine camel's hair brush he can restore the most delicate tints in bank safety paper, which tints have been destroyed by the use of acids. In fact no bank safety paper is a protection against him.

When the amount of the genuine draft or check is perforated in the paper, certain forgers have reached such perfection in their work as to enable them to cut out the perforation, put in a patch about the same as a shoemaker does with a shoe and then skilfully color the patch to agree with the original, so that it becomes a very difficult matter to detect the alterations even with the use of a microscope.

This done and the writing cleaned off the face of the draft, check, letter of credit, or bill of exchange, with only the genuine signature left and the tints on the paper restored, the forger is prepared to fill up the paper for any amount decided upon.

The backer or capitalist is rarely known to any member of the band outside the "go-between," whom he makes use of to find the forger. He very rarely allows himself to become known to the men who "present"

the forged paper at the banks. If the forgery scheme is successful, the backer receives back the money paid out for the preparation of the work as well as any amount he may have lent the "band" to enable them to open accounts at banks where they propose placing the forged paper.

He is also allowed a certain percentage on all successful forgeries, this percentage running from 20 to 30 per cent; but where the backer and forger are working together, their joint percentage is never less than 50 per cent.

It is an invariable rule followed by the backer and forger that in selecting a middle man they select one who not only has the reputation of being a "stanch" man, but he must also be a man who has at least one record of conviction standing against him. This is for the additional protection of the backer and forger, as they know that in law the testimony of an accomplice who is also a former convict must be strongly corroborated to be believed.

Out of their first successful forgeries a certain sum from each man's share is held by the middle man to be used in the defense of any member of the band who may be arrested on the trip. This money is called "fall money" and is used to employ counsel for the men under arrest or to do anything for them that may be for their interest.

When a "middle man" is exceedingly cautious and not entirely satisfied with the "presenters" he will sometimes have an a.s.sistant. This is where the "shadow" comes in. This shadow will under the direction of the "middle man" follow the "presenter" into the bank and report fully on his actions. He sometimes catches the "presenter" in an attempt to swindle his companions by claiming that he did not get the money, but had to get out of the bank in a hurry and leave the check or draft, as the paying teller was suspicious.

A "presenter" caught at this trick is sometimes sent into a bank to present a forged check where the bank has been previously warned of his coming by an anonymous letter. This is done as a punishment for his dishonesty and as a warning to others against treachery.

That the professional forger eventually profits but little by his ill-gotten gains is well ill.u.s.trated by the fate of the most of them, who end their days in prison.

In the case of a forgery there are a dozen methods for detecting it--in the quality of the ink, in the quality of paper, in microscopic examination of the irregularities in penmanship, in "labored" tracings that show exaggerated tracings, in composite photography, and by a dozen little common-sense observations that scarcely can be controverted.

Some forgeries have been detected by the mere water-mark in the paper.

Sittl of Munich is quoted as having had referred to him a possible forgery of a doc.u.ment dated 1868. Holding the paper to the light, he found as a water-mark in it the figure of the eagle of the German Empire--a symbol which had not been adopted at all until after the French war of 1870.

The magnifying gla.s.s is depended upon for many disclosures of forgeries. The unduly serrated edges of the ink lines are quickly marked in a forgery, though under certain circ.u.mstances a situation may be such as to force a person into this laborious writing; he may be cramped up in bed, writing on a book held in his lap, or he may be in a mental strain that produces it.

There are minds so easily impressed with a sense of responsibility that the writing or signing of any paper important in its bearing on the writer or his property will cause him to disguise his hand to some extent involuntarily, as many persons disguise their features involuntarily when being photographed.

As to signatures especially, attention is called to the "tremor of fraud," which is to be detected by the microscope, and stress is laid upon the necessity of observing just where this tremor falls. If it is in a difficult flourish of the signature and not elsewhere it indicates fraud; or if it be tremulous to the eye, in imitation of the signature of an aged person, a smooth, curved line may be the index of "the difficulty experienced by a good penman in feigning to be a bad one."

The microscope is useful and valuable in determining whether erasures have been made on paper. Also it will discover which of two crossed lines was last written. It may determine whether the ragged edges of the ink lines are those of fraud, illiteracy, or old age.

The practice of forging the names of depositors in banks to checks, drafts, notes, and in fact to all papers representing a money value, has been practiced, probably, since the creation of man. Of course the law recognizes forgery as a serious crime, and everywhere the punishment is severe. In the seventeenth century it was a capital offense in England, and there were more persons executed for that crime than there were for murder. Notwithstanding the rigorous penalty prescribed in every state in the Union, forgery is carried on to an alarming extent, sometimes by trusted employees, as well as professionals.

The raising of checks and drafts is the princ.i.p.al method employed by the men who make a business of defrauding the unwary. The simplest way of explaining the operation of raising a draft or check is as follows:

Two men are necessary for success at any given point, and hence they are not so liable to detection as if a number of confederates were engaged. It is the business of one of these men to enter a bank, and purchase a draft on New York City, for a certain amount of money, usually about fifteen hundred dollars, and a short time after this another draft would be procured from the same bank for a small amount, seldom over ten dollars. These drafts procured, they are handed to the "raiser," or the man who is to alter the paper for their dishonest purposes. In a short time the small draft is raised to be a perfect duplicate of the large one, in every sense of the word, both as regards number, amount, place of presentation, etc.

This work of alteration being fully completed, one of the men would then remove to another city, and forward the "raised" draft to New York, by express, for collection, or else would go to that city himself, and have it cashed through some respectable person.

Immediately on receiving the money he would telegraph his companion, in words previously agreed upon, informing him of the successful result of the first move. The other confederate, upon the receipt of this information, would at once go to the bank where the drafts had been procured, and presenting the genuine draft for the large amount of money, would request that the money be refunded, giving as an excuse for not using it, either that he could not be identified in the New York bank, and for that reason could not collect it, or that the business he had procured it for had not been consummated. The bank officials would recognize him as the person who purchased the draft, and would unhesitatingly hand him back the money which he had paid. Of course he would quickly disappear from the locality, never to be seen in it again--and the forgery would not be discovered until, in the due course of ordinary business, when the other draft for the same amount would be returned for payment.

A favorite trick of forgers, and check and draft raisers, who operate on an extensive scale, is for one of them to open an office in a city, and represent himself as a cattle dealer, lumber merchant, or one looking about for favorable real-estate investments. His first move is to open a bank account, and then works to get on friendly terms with the cashier. He always keeps a good balance--sometimes way up in the thousands--and deports himself in such a manner as to lead to the belief that he is a highly honorable gentleman, and the bank officials are led to the belief that he will eventually become a very profitable customer.

Occasionally he has a note, for a small amount to begin with, always first-cla.s.s, two-name paper, and he never objects--usually insists--in paying a trifle more than the regular discount. At first the bank officials closely examine the paper offered, and of course find that the endorsers are men of high standing, and then their confidence in the "cattle king" is unbounded. Gradually the notes increase in amount, from a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars, and from fifteen hundred to two or three thousand. The notes are promptly paid at maturity. After the confidence of the bank people has been completely gained, the swindler makes a strike for his greatest effort. He comes in the bank in a hurry, presents a sixty-day note, endorsed by first-cla.s.s men, for a larger amount than he has ever before requested, and it generally happens that he gets the money without the slightest difficulty. Then he has a sudden call to attend to important business elsewhere. When the note or notes mature, it is discovered to be a clever forgery. This has been done time and again, and it is rare that the forger has been apprehended.

The forgery of checks is a common offense. It takes more than one man to successfully perform this operation. The forger himself is known as the "scratcher," or the expert penman of the party. The "middle man"

is the fellow who conducts the business negotiations, ostensibly as a merchant, and the "layer-down" is the man who presents the check to the bank and secures the cash. The middle man must have a pleasing address, and be thoroughly posted on the commercial news of the day, and it is requisite that the layer-down be well dressed, quick witted, and possessed of an unlimited amount of polite a.s.surance, a cheek that never pales and an eye that never droops. In selecting a person to fill this important position, the forger prefers to have a man who has, at some time or other, been convicted of crime, so that in case of discovery, and the turning of state's evidence by the layer-down (who is always the man caught) his evidence will not have weight with a jury. The latest mode is for the forger to imitate a private check by the photo-lithographic method, after having obtained a signed check.