Local News in Brief : Santa Ana : Fingerprint Devices Offered Store Owners
Police Friday announced that a new “inkless” fingerprinting system will be offered to city store owners, who lost more than $500,000 last year to check forgers.
Police Chief Clyde Cronkhite said merchants who use the system may turn over to police those checks that banks return as forgeries. The thumbprints then will be entered into the California Identification Computer System and checked against hundreds of thousands of prints statewide.
Cronkhite said merchants reported that they lost more than a half million dollars last year to check forgery but that the actual number of forged checks probably was five or six times more.
“A lot of it goes unreported,” Cronkhite said. “We lose literally millions of dollars. The cost is not only to the businesses. It’s passed on to all of us as customers.”
The chief said he believes that Santa Ana is the first city in the county to offer the fingerprint program.
“We’ve checked around, and as far as I know we are the first in the country,” Cronkhite said. So far, he said, about 70 small businesses have signed up.
“The bigger businesses are a little apprehensive to get involved until they see how customers accept this,” he said.
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