BANKS START FINGERPRINTING CHECK CASHERS.

Byline: Jeff Barnard Associated Press 

Can an ink pad selling for $2.75 help stop millions of dollars in bogus check losses for banks and other financial institutions?

Banking groups in 16 states think so. They're urging members to put noncustomers' thumb prints on the backs of checks so that if a check turns out to be bogus, police will have a leg up on catching the crook.

With 63 billion checks written each year, fraud is big money. The American Bankers Association found commercial banks lost $815 million to check fraud in 1993, while bank robbers took just $65 million, said spokesman John Hall.

Around the country, more and more banks are starting to fingerprint check cashers. Many of the bankers who have done so say they have seen fewer fraud cases as a result.

The banks don't keep fingerprints on file. The print goes on the back of the check and stays there unless the check turns out to be phony. Then police can use it to identify the person who cashed it.

The Texas Bankers Association is leading the way in fingerprinting. Three months after thumb prints became a requirement, seven regional banks showed an average reduction of 59 percent in check fraud losses, said TBA spokesman Lenelle Freeman.

Considering a Texas-style plan are bankers in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

While no one yet has been convicted as a result of the prints, many industry watchers believe that deterrence is a powerful tool.

``Crooks will tell you there are two things you want to avoid: going to places to write bad paper that take your picture, and most of all they don't want to cash a check at a place that takes a print,'' said Chuck Warren, a Beaverton, Ore., police detective.

With phony identification easy to get, even from the state Motor Vehicles Division, a signature is no longer enough to identify someone, Warren said.

But others say that smart criminals will find ways around the system.

``It may from time to time scare someone who is just passing a check because the person's desperate and needs the money,'' said security consultant Frank Abagnale of Tulsa, Okla., who claims to have written $2.5 million in bogus checks before spending 12 years in federal prison.

``But it is certainly not going to stop somebody who has any common sense of the fingerprinting system or who has never been fingerprinted.''

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Photo: (color) Some banks require thumb prints from noncust omer check cashers.

Associated Press