Thursday, July 9, 2009

Carrier helps foil check-washing scheme

When a rural carrier at the Hugo, MN, Post Office retrieved some damaged pieces of mail from a NDCBU collection compartment, she turned the mail over to Officer-In-Charge Colleen Rieck.

Rieck noticed some opened letters and called the customer, along with the Postal Inspectors. She told the woman that she had found a payment coupon for a credit card account, but no check to go with it. The customer said that she would contact her bank immediately.

When the customer called her bank, they were able to flag the account. The flag showed up later, when a man showed up trying to cash the check in question. The check had been washed and then made out in the man’s name for $1,000 more than the original amount. The teller stalled the man, telling him that she would need to check to see if funds were available. Instead she called police, who arrived and placed the would-be check casher under arrest.

In this case, justice prevails!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am not familiar with the term "check washing". Does this mean denominations in ink can be removed and re-written? If so, this is scary. Thieves have no shortage of schemes. Thank goodness for this alert clerk.