check stealing from mail boxes

[charly_t]

This does not exactly belong on this forum. Three of our checks have been 'lost' in the last 6 months. One has never surfaced, one was found in the lady's ( recipient ) neighbor's yard and so saved. The last one was cashed by someone. It was written with one of those inks ( pens ) that can not be 'washed' from the check very easily. The bank says that the check showed a lot of smearing but was still clear enough for someone to cash it somewhere. What do any of you know about this kind of crime ? We will be turning it over to LE officer but I would like info on what other people know before we talk to him. I think that I should add that the check was for a few hundred dollars but the thief was not able to alter it in any way.

[sick lids]

I had same problem at an apartment I lived in, they would even pry open my box and take out checks made out to police for parking, the mail fraud charges would be the worst for the perps. Might want to call your local postmaster ie a federal crime has been committed and they take this sort of thing very seriously.

[JDogger]

This does not exactly belong on this forum. Three of our checks have been 'lost' in the last 6 months. One has never surfaced, one was found in the lady's ( recipient ) neighbor's yard and so saved. The last one was cashed by someone. It was written with one of those inks ( pens ) that can not be 'washed' from the check very easily. The bank says that the check showed a lot of smearing but was still clear enough for someone to cash it somewhere. What do any of you know about this kind of crime ? We will be turning it over to LE officer but I would like info on what other people know before we talk to him. I think that I should add that the check was for a few hundred dollars but the thief was not able to alter it in any way.

Charly...Please don't tell us that you still use a roadside RFD mailbox for delivery and and posting of mail...? JD

[charly_t]

Charly...Please don't tell us that you still use a roadside RFD mailbox for delivery and and posting of mail...? JD

For some things....yes......others no. The request for money for a lady we know was a spur of the moment thing. Hubby thinks he watched the box well after he took the letter ( and check ) out and mailed it. So it may have been stolen on the other end. Anyway at our ages we have a struggle to get to town as needed. Hubby wants to move to an apartment for seniors in town. I think we have waited too long to do that. We
thought for a short while we would be moving to another state ( warm weather year round ) but life does not always go the way we have planned for it to. Mostly junk mail in our rural box. We used to have a P.O. Box in town.

[MDowney]

Contact your local Postmaster and Postal Inspector. The Postal Inspection Service will look into it.

37 year Postal Employee(retired) with a step son who is a Postal Inspector.

[charly_t]

Post Office is on the job. So are the county boys and girls. We have a copy of the check from our bank and why anyone would have cashed a check that had been 'went over' with something like a sharpy pen I don't know. I think the only thing that kept them from "washing" it and writing it again was the fact that it was written with the special pen that is very difficult to wash out. Some of the pre-printed info on the check ( our names and our address ) was even missing in a few places. It was such a sloppy job that anyone with half a brain would not have cashed it. Hubby had used a UniBall Micro 207 to write that check. Not the best writing pen but it was worth the struggle to hold the pen straight upwards to write the check

Many Thanks to all of you.