For those of you that missed this last January:
Jan 2nd, 2019
I put a check in the mailbox around 1pm today and put the little flag up... the mailman doesn't come till after 4pm. I left for awhile, and came home around 3:30pm, flag still up. As I was walking from my car to the house, I seen a man walking towards the mailbox that is out at the roadside. I assumed it was my neighbor checking his mail, so went to wave and then realized it was someone else. We made eye contact and he turned around walking away from the mailbox. I hid behind the house watching around the corner and he went back, opened the box and as he took the envelope and shut the box a car pulled up and he jumped in and they sped off. I ran to the road and got the license plate. I called the cops as I also jumped in the car to try and follow them, but they were long gone and the cops don't seem to be too bothered with solving the problem. I googled the plate number and the site gave me the year, make and model and it all matches what I seen, but it only gives me the first and last initial of the car owner... What more can I do? This was after hours, so I am going to try and talk to the police chief in the AM.
I also called the bank immediately and had my account froze as both the account number and routing number are on the check and I will be going up tomorrow to change the numbers...
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Jan 3rd, 2019
UPDATE:
My first priority was stopping by the post office this morning and they seem to be much more helpful than the local PD. I gave the information to the postmaster and he has already given it to the postal inspector.
I then stopped at the bank and was going to cancel the check until they wanted $25 to do so. I do not want to pay any more than I have to, so I left there with the account still frozen as this was the only active check I had.
Then it was off to the PD. They did let me see their computer and the plate did match the car I seen, but it was last registered to a dealer 90 miles away in 2017, so they are telling me they can't do anything unless they happen to spot the vehicle, highly unlikely... I asked why they are not contacting the last owner and was told that the police officer who I dealt with last night is working on the case and he will look into it. I had to explain to him that this officer doesn't come in until 5pm, and many small dealers will probably be closed by then and on top of that it could be just some random guy that sells abunch of cars and has a dealers license. I asked if they could look into it sooner than tonight and he got mad at me telling me they have other calls to look into. He also did not understand why I wasn't willing to pay the $25 to have the check cancelled and got even more mad at me when I asked him for the $25 to cancel it. After some arguing back and forth he shut his computer and walked away from me.
Finally I headed up to the bank and they were able to close the checking account and open a new one free of charge, which also gave me 50 free checks that will take me more than 5 years to use up.
So as of now I am just out a stamp and a lot of time/driving around.
....Within an hour I got a phone call from the PD that they contacted the dealer. The owner of the dealership is currently on vacation in Russia and does not remember the car, but he is going to have his partner look into it... Pretty sure nothing will ever happen, and at least I am only out my stamp and finally got my address updated with a new checking account for free... Hopefully they were scared off and don't have any plans of returning. I resent the new check out this morning and hand-delivered it to the post office.
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Jan 4th, 2019
Another update, two men were pulled over and arrested on the same road I live on after stealing chainsaws from a shed and they found meth in the car. Just seen their mugshots on the news and one looks a lot like the guy I seen digging in my mailbox... Will have to see if the police let me know or see what they were driving in the morning...
...Unfortunately it looks like they will be getting away... I talked to the police station again about the two that I seen on the news and their car was nothing like what I had seen. They also told me the DOT has been surveying my road to re-surface and on an average day there are 12-14,000 cars, so with a plate last registered at a dealership in 2017, it is highly unlikely they will be found...
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Jan 7th, 2019
UPDATE:
Just received a phone call from my bank asking if I had written a check for $1500 on Friday the 4th. They are faxing my local bank a copy of the check so I can take that to the police station in the morning...
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Jan 8th, 2019
After an hour at Wells Fargo and dealing with their phone service, we were able to get the time, date and location of where the check was deposited into an ATM machine (11:46 pm, nearest big city 15 miles from me). I gave the information to the police and they are going to try looking at the cameras, but then I called the Postal Inspector back to update them and they told me the police can arrest/hold them, but it is out of their jurisdiction and the Postal Service will be prosecuting at a federal level if they are caught, so fingers crossed!
And they were able to give me the picture of the check and everything has been changed, including my signature. They wrote it out for $1500 for tranny parts. I don't know how they did it, I can't see any traces of what I wrote, but they kept the check number the same. Wells Fargo was not able to tell me who got the money (I assume who the check was written to) or if they got any money, the bank lady turned her phone volume down so I couldn't even hear anything.
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Mid Feb 2019
Received a phone call from a Postal Inspector asking all the same questions that I had previously been asked...
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