Metro company says someone has been stealing customers' checks out of the mail
A metro Atlanta small business says customer checks are repeatedly being intercepted in the mail and stolen before ever getting to them.
'We've had over 20 checks and it's over $4,000,' Page Cade, of A&A Exterminators, said. 'We're having customers calling and saying I haven't been serviced. And we say, well, we haven't received your check.'
All the stolen A&A checks have been mobile deposited to a Regions Bank account. They were endorsed by individuals who have no relationship to the Cobb County business.
'$4,000, that's a lot of money. It's a lot of money for anybody,' Cade said.
Channel 2 Action News Investigates has been looking into postal check thefts since 2022. That's when we showed you how a Georgia State University research team was finding stolen checks and postal arrow keys for sale on online marketplaces.
Just last month, that GSU professor, David Maimon, posted on LinkedIn that the prices for criminals to buy stolen checks have dropped since 2022.
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He showed a photo full of checks, all for sale for just $100 total.
'Atlanta is one of the worst. Atlanta, Georgia, there is a mail theft epidemic,' said Frank Albergo, a postal service police officer and the president of their union.
For five years now, he's been pushing to end a 2020 postal service policy change that prevents postal police from patrolling carrier routes.
'The postal service will not put postal police back out on the street even though we are the most effective tool to stop mail theft,' Albergo said.
The FBI released a warning earlier this year alerting people that 'mail theft-related check fraud is on the rise.'
Regions Bank tells Gray in this case, the A&A customers should be able to get their money back.
Regions spotted the fraud, held the funds, and said A&A customers should reach out to their own banks.
'We're actively working on this matter and, as part of our standard fraud-flagging procedures, we placed security holds on the deposit account several weeks ago to secure funds and prevent recurrence. We remain ready to work with the bank that issued the checks to continue resolving this matter on behalf of the impacted business.'
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