Bankrate.com (2004) “Who is watching your bounced checks?” MSN.com, 8/21/2004

If you do not pay cash for something, then someone somewhere knows what you bought.

Your credit card company watches you and their computers, tell them that you have purchasing patterns. One time my wife had her pocket picked in Washington D.C. Within a few hours, her card was used to buy a lot of liquor and some new state of the art tennis shoes. Then the card would no longer work for the thief. S/he then stopped and threw my wife’s wallet into the mailbox. We received it later that week. We were not penalized by the credit car company and did not have to pay for those purchases. We spent a month getting some new cards, checks and related. We wanted to avoid “identity theft.”

All credit and check exchanges are watched by 3 major agencies. You can get a report from them for a price. It will tell you all about you. You also can contest the report. Try FREECREDITREPORT.COM or EQUIFAX.COM. Years ago, I inadvertently over insured a cabin that we lived in year around. With the freedom of information act, I was able to contact these agencies and they had all my secrets. They even had comments made by my colleagues.

The third and last is ChexSystems, they quietly track you. If you begin to bounce a few checks you automatically go on 5 years probation. Eighty percent of the banks subscribe to the system. Recently, this consortium has tried to make room for special cases, but in the main the regulatory functions can be fairly severe. So don’t write checks with insufficient funds.

As a catch-all, there are other government agencies that watch you if you are in trouble.
So if anything, as this website has suggested in other entries, you do not have secrets. The world has gone global and your secrets are out there in the system.

I wish you well.