I now know more about “check washing” than I ever wanted to know.

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, it’s the criminal act of altering a stolen paper check.

They change the payee and usually the amount while keeping the signature in place.

I stumbled across it from my almost daily habit of checking my account via my Banks of Stockton app.

It might sound a tad anal but it is a habit I developed in the dark ages when people kept track of their checking account balance with a pen and a pocketbook registry.

Back then — as well as today — I like to keep track of how much money I have because, like many people, I’m not exactly swimming in it.

The app gives you the luxury of knowing when checks and deposits clear.

I rarely write paper checks any more.

Everything that I don’t swipe my ATM card to pay for is paid by electronic checks, either automatically or by prompts via a phone call.

The only thing I regularly write out checks for is my PG&E bill.

Whether it is an entry that is an electronic check or a paper check — I always open it to double check on the payee’s name.

It’s a habit that was born in the days where you made sure your bank statement matched up with your checkbook.

So there I was on Tuesday, doing a double take looking at a $250 payment I scrolled down to and opened the entry.

It was the right check number, but the payee was not PG&E.

It was a name I did not recognize that was hand printed and was too legible to ever be mine.

The printing of the numbers of dollars was changed but not the amount.

A quick call to the bank— I actually got a human within a matter of seconds and not some artificially intelligence minion — and I was able to address the problem.

Long story short, in just over an hour Bank of Stockton closed my account, opened a new one, made sure electronic transfers would be taken care of including one for my mortgage that was due the next day, and started the process needed to retrieve my $250.

I left with all the paperwork that confirmed the steps the bank had taken in my behalf.

Not to slam national banks, but the service and prompt attention to address my situation the Bank of Stockton provided is typical of my experience with regional and local banks.

That said, there is no way an online bank can provide that kind of service.

Of course, the “disruptive” geniuses of the tech world that boldly declared a few years back that brick or mortar banking would go the way of the dodo bird so therefore online banking unicorns should be showered with all sorts of startup money would say otherwise.

The timing of discovering that I was the target of bank fraud came just four days before the City of Manteca’s twice-a year free Shed It event.

It is this Saturday from 8 a.m. to noon at the city’s solid waste yard on Wetmore Street.

The city, at the urging of the Manteca Police Department, started the first Shred It event back in the 1990s.

The reason was simple.

Enterprising low-lives were rifling through residential trash carts retrieving anything useful for identify thieves to commit fraud.

They were receiving $20 per 30 gallon trash bag for junk mail, discarded statements, address labels from magazines - you name it.

Combined with mail theft that was epidemic at the time, identify thieves were having a field day.

Fast forward to today.

Many people believe that ID theft and financial crimes are now the exclusive domain of 20 something techies hyped up on Red Bull in a dark room or enterprising folks in Nigeria.

Stealing mail or forging through garbage carts for documents and information to commit ID theft is passé, right?

Far from it.

It’s just as a serious problem today as it was 20 years ago.

PG&E was the only bill I paid by mail.

I say was, because I’m switching PG&E to electronic check as well.

I’m not even sure I want to order any paper checks for my new account.

Somewhere between my dropping the return envelope in one of the dwindling icons of yesteryear — better known as street postal boxes — to its intended destination in Sacramento, the return envelope with the remittance stub and check was pilfered.

The mail box was on Center Street outside the now mostly empty Manteca Main Post Office.

Unless someone managed to find ways to steal the PG&E payment from the mail box, it got swiped somewhere along the line in the custody of the United States Postal Service or after it arrived at the PG&E processing center.

Is it my fault? No.

Is it the Postal Service’s fault? No.

Is it PG&E’s fault? No.

That said, we need to take basic steps to reduce our exposure to fraud.

Switching from using the mail to making electronic payments is one way.

And so is collecting all things that can be fodder for ID thieves that you no longer need — bank statements, credit card bills, personal information, and such — tossing them in a garbage bag and taking them to the Shred It event this Saturday between 8 a.m. and noon.

The documents that are dropped off in garbage bags or in cardboard boxes are shredded on site.

It might be a pain to do and take a little time.

But it’s a very small pain and hardly no time at all compared to what you’ll go through if your ID is stolen or your bank account is compromised.

This column is the opinion of editor, Dennis Wyatt, and does not necessarily represent the opinions of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia. He can be reached at dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com