For these reasons Abagnale said, “I always tell people ‘you have to protect yourself.’ You can’t rely on the bank to protect you; you can’t rely on the police to protect you; you can’t rely on the government to protect you. You have to be a smarter business person, a wiser business person.”
One serious security hole in Check 21 has to do with evidence. Suppose a forged check is scanned, truncated and paid. When the fraud is detected later, it is very possible the original document will no longer exist. The evidence of the forgery is destroyed. Abagnale related one of his own scams to convey how modern technology and laws make fraud easier than when he was pulling scams. Abagnale had devised a way to coat counterfeit checks with a caustic chemical. “Within 24 hours the check would disintegrate and I called it the disappearing check. So there was no check by the time it went to deposit. [When it] went into the clearing house it was nothing but shreds of paper. ... This is basically the same thing,” he said.