Actually, in the US each day the images of the endorsements have to be reviewed by a person to confirm their legitimacy and accuracy. The imaging determines the basic presence of an endorsement and may be able to decipher it, but fraud prevention can only be achieved with a person's eyes.

>>>The amounts on those checks look normal to me, so I suspect that there is some kind of hidden security mechanism at work.
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>Probably! My bank can tell immediately whether I endorsed the back or not when I use Mobile deposit, so I suspect there's a lot going on behind the scenes.
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>FWIW, outside the US all our invoices go out electronically via xero.com and all payments are deposited electronically and correctly reconciled in Xero. I haven't received or written a business check in years.