The widespread problem of counterfeit traveller's cheques has caused a number of businesses to no longer accept them or to impose stringent safeguards when they are used. It is a reasonable security procedure for the payee to ask to inspect the purchaser's picture ID; a driver's license or passport should suffice, and doing so would most usefully be towards the end of comparing the purchaser's signature on the ID with those on the cheque. The best first step, however, that can be taken by any payee who has concerns about the validity of any traveller's cheque, is to contact the issuer directly; a negative finding by a third-party cheque verification service based on an ID cheque may merely indicate that the service has no record about the purchaser (to be expected, practically by definition, of many travellers), or at worst that they have been deemed incompetent to manage a personal chequing account (which would have no bearing on the validity of a traveller's cheque).