GUEST COMENTARY Bill King Don’t Mail Checks in Window Envelopes! A couple of months ago, I wrote a check for about 0 to my pool company for the monthly maintenance. It was a computer-generated check that I mailed in a window envelope, which made it apparent that a check was enclosed. After about ten days, the check had still not cleared. I called the company and they said they had not received it. A couple of days later, the check cleared my bank twice, except the payee and the amount had been altered. Instead of being payable to my pool company for 0, the check was shown to be payable to a company and a person I had never heard of and were for a total of over ,000. Under the Uniform Commercial Code, the person that first accepts the forged signature must bear the loss. So, in my case, my bank had to replace the funds in my account and they, in turn, were made whole by the banks that originally accepted the forged checks. But I still had to close the account and open a new account. That meant I had to order new checks and contact 16 The Blues - May ‘24 all of my auto payments and deposits. And because some of those do not act immediately, e.g., the Social Security Administration, I had to work with my bank to periodically transfer funds out of the closed account. In other words, it has been a royal pain in the you know what. After doing some investigating, I discovered that what happened to me has become fairly common. The common element in many cases was that the checks had been sent in window envelopes. One law enforcement source I spoke to told me that they believe rogue postal workers are pocketing envelopes that are obviously checks and selling them to crime syndicates that are the in business of forging the checks. The Post Office maintains that most stolen checks are from thieves breaking into streetside mail dropoffs. Checks being stolen from mailboxes has become so ubiquitous in some cities, police departments like Coral Spring PD have begun posting warnings to the public on X. The checks are being deposited remotely through a phone app or at an ATM. In my case, the same check was altered two more times after the first two (four in total) and deposited in various locations, all with a different payee and amount. One organization told me that their check was deposited by a person in Las Vegas. So, this seems to be a nationwide scam operation. There are numerous media accounts in various cities. In fact, the problem has gotten so bad that last year, the Post Office advised against sending checks in the mail at all. According to their statement at the time, over 680,000 checks were stolen from the mail in the previous year. In talking to the fraud department at my bank and researching the issue, these are the steps that banks and other experts most advise: Do as much banking online as possible. Use your bank’s payment site or use the direct payment with your payee, if they are a reputable institution, such as a bank or utility provider. Zelle is another option to pay, which is easy to set up and convenient. However, there has been some fraud around Zelle. There is a
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IN N.C. R INJURED The Blues - May
EN HEROES Police Officer Joshua Eye
and Along Side” The The Blues Blu
From left to right, Andrew Troje, D
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ow, the remarkable gestures of supp
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PROUDLY PRESENTS THE 2024 ST ND RD
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HONORS, RESPECTS AND REMEMBERS OUR
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female police officers killed in th
diagnosed with LGL Leukemia, a rare
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This Special Memorial Edition of Th
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CHIEF OF POLICE JUSTIN CLARK MCINTI
DEPUTY SHERIFF DARNELL CALHOUN RIVE
LIEUTENANT GERALD T. BARBATO NEW JE
CORRECTIONS OFFICER LAWRENCE CHRIST
POLICE OFFICER GONZALO CARRASCO, JR
OFFICER SEAN LEONARD SLUGANSKI MCKE
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OFFICER JULIAN BECERRA FOUNTAIN POL
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CORPORAL JOSEPH JOHNSON NYSSA POLIC
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