Yet Again: Lakewood Resident Nearly Loses $24,000 in Check Theft; Credits TLS for the Save

A Lakewood business-owner is crediting The Lakewood Scoop for saving them over $24,000.

“Thank you for your article on the Scoop about a check that was white washed, I’m dealing with this now,” a business-owner told TLS today. “If not for the article, I would have thought this was normal and lost 25K. Still hoping that I can get the money back.”

The business-owner says she wrote out a check to a business and was wondering why they never got it.

The recipient never received it, because it was apparently stolen, and used for fraud.

“This morning, I got a fraud alert asking me if I made out this check, and I confirmed that I had,” she said – not realizing that the person who was attempting to deposit the check was a fraudster. There was no picture of the check attached to the alert, which is why they had assumed it was being deposited by the intended party.

However, she decided to double check it, and noticed something was off.

“The thief deposited the check, but you can clearly tell it was white-washed,” she said.

And altered it was. The thief had changed the name on the check, and made it out to himself, even writing his address on it. A quick online search turned up the name of the person the check was altered to.

The business-owner immediately went to the bank in Lakewood, and managed to put a stop on the check just in time.

The business-owner added, “You can let that other person know that he just saved a small business from a huge loss.”

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4 COMMENTS

  1. Some banks have a system where you upload your check number, payee name and amount onto their website. When someone tries to deposit it it needs to match. Otherwise it will bounce.

  2. Dear wonderful Community,
    It might be a good idea, anytime a person gets a fraud alert from the bank for a nice amount of money, call the recipient and ask a 5 second question, “Did you get the check?”.
    Also, why not ask the recipient to send you a text, WhatsApp or email to acknowledge receipt of check.
    Of course, this request can not be done in the same envelope as the check.
    The extra minute of proper planning before hand, can save you two hours of your precious time during normal business hours.

  3. I had a similar situation. The recipient did not recieve a check I sent them. Turns out, the check was stolen in the mail. The person that stole the check did not alter the check. Knowing that that particular check number was never cashed, they made there own checks with all my exact information and specifically wrote out that check number to someone for more than 10k. They then picked another check number 200 numbers passed the first and wrote out another check in excess of 10k. I caught the second one, shut the account, filed appropriate papers with the bank, obtained a police report and after a while, got refunded on the first check.

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