Business workshop aims at curtailing check fraud.(document security firm Standard Register's free document prevention workshop on Sep 30, 1999, in Tampa, Florida)

LOSSES: Businesses forced to share burden with banks

Business owners are being forced to bear part of the burden of check fraud, even as computers and printers become more sophisticated and easier to obtain by perpetrators.

"There are 1.2 million bad checks entering the system each and every day, and the banks cannot continue to absorb those losses," said Tim Keefe, regional sales manager with Standard Register, an Ohio-based document security company with offices in Tampa.

It sounds like a sales pitch, but it's also a warning to anyone who believes a check issued today won't come back in another form with a forged signature and, worse yet, written …