Criminals Are Cashing in Fake Savings I Bonds With Authentic Serial Numbers — My Money Blog

Many of us have bought Series I Savings Bonds in the past, and it appears criminals have also been taking notice. From the CNBC article California woman pleads guilty in $1.6 million counterfeit Series I savings bond scheme:

A California woman pled guilty to helping process more than $1.6 million in counterfeit Treasury Department Series I savings bonds through financial institutions around the United States, the Department of Justice said Thursday.

Summer Marie Creech, 45, forged counterfeit I bonds using authentic bond numbers and sent them to co-conspirators who used stolen identification to redeem the forgeries at financial institutions in south Texas and elsewhere, according to the DOJ.

A concerning detail here is that the articles states she used authentic bond serial numbers. Where did she get them? Are they issued in some sort of predictable order or algorithm? Did they find some banks that just paid out cash?

How do I know that someone else hasn’t already redeemed a counterfeit savings bonds with MY serial number(s) on it? I can only look up the value based on issue date at TreasuryDirect.gov Paper Savings Bond Calculator (you can enter any serial number you like). There is no way to confirm if my specific serial number has already been cashed in (by me or by someone else). This may be another reason for me to convert the paper savings bonds into the electronic version and track it online. I’ve been turned off by the very long wait times recently along the possibility of it being lost in the mail, but I may have to bite the bullet.