Counterfeit travelers checks and fraudulent $100 bills have arrived in Anderson a little later this summer compared to years past, according to Anderson Police Department Captain Robert Kirvin.

Summertime, rather than the winter holiday shopping season, has traditionally been the season for fraud of this sort, Kirvin said. “There hitting us late this year,” he said about the three cases of fraud in July, “it usually starts in June.”

Usually only malls and strip malls off I-5 are targeted, and the suspects are all from the Bay Area, Kirvin said, adding that the suspects could defraud several stores in one stop before moving onto the next city.

“They do this stuff for a living,” he said of the suspects, “so they know which stores don’t have a phone chain.”

The Shasta Outlets stores received the fraudulent checks, Kirvin said, but the stores have learned to defend themselves. At one time, six stores could be defrauded before the suspect left Anderson, Kirvin said.

But since the Shasta Outlets have instituted a phone chain, the stores have been able to defend themselves by notifying every other store and the APD with one call. Also, store clerks are better trained to look for the security features embedded into the bills and checks, Kirvin said.

“The last time we had a bad traveler’s check, it was on a Sunday night when the manager is not usually there,” said Linda Austin, manager of the Shasta Outlets.

A manager was on duty, noticed the check’s coloring was off, and called to verify whether the check was valid. During the manager’s phone call, the customers changed their minds and left the store. The manager called APD immediately afterward, Austin said.

Austin added that alert employees are a store’s only real defense against taking fake checks.