dirty scam! im ticked off

[s13sr20chris]

well, i was in the hospital recently with the wife as the child was born. while we were there someone stole a box of new checks from our mailbox and went on a spending spree. they emptyed our checking account and then the bank emptyed our savings account to pay the overdrafts. they bought a bunch of gift cards in the ammount of $400.00 from places like home depot. now we are in mega debt, got bills, no food, no gas, and new baby. i am agravated. i know the good Lord will provide. people from our church have been bringing us food(they do that for all new babys) and i have a little cash laying around for gas. i called my bank and i think they will take care of it. the checks they used were way higher than the last checks we wrote and the guys signature looks nothing like mine. the fraud guy on the phone said it will be 72 hours before the investigator calls me.</background info>

what can i do about this and what can i expect from my bank? anyone got a similar story to relate? anyone have particularly usefull info on this subject?

[gniknave]

Man that really sucks. I can tell you that with fraud protection and the magic of video cameras it's likely you'll recover your funds in no time. As for the bastards that did it, the dumbest thing they could have done was buy gift cards from Home Depot. I would contact the Home Depot those cards were purchased from and request the card numbers from those gift cards they bought.

The thief or thieves that did this will likely use the cards at various Home Depots and then try to sell the items they bought on places like Craigslist.org or eBay for cash. Also ask Home Depot why they broke policy and allowed someone to buy $400 worth of gift cards with a check! I used to work for them and the policy was always $50 limit on gift card purchases by check.

[[Zero-S]]

Damn, I'm sorry to hear that Chris. Let me know if I can help in some way (I don't know how much good I can do being the broke college student I am but still), seeing as I do live pretty close.

[SDRonEbay]

I KNEW IT!!! People told me taking that course introduction to banking this summer was useless but I said I want to do it anyway.

Man, you are in my prayers and as I breath right now He will deal with those who have wronged you.

FRAUD - First thing to remember or know is your banks affiliation with the FDIC. If your bank is backed by the FDIC, you are automatically insured for $100,000. (side note, that also means that if you have more than $100,001 in your bank, you're only insured for $100,000.) So that being said, don't worry.

Secondly - Every bank has to, by law, make some reasonable efforts to protect their customers. This is most advertised in the recent film 'Catch Me If You Can'. A bank has just as much to lose if they do not protect their customers. Banks make their money by lending, true, but it's reputation is built on how it handles customers checkings, savings, IRA's, Money Markets, and CD's. These are the customers they see on a daily basis.

Third - Most banks will return the money to the account in a timely manner provided you have called in, made your statement, understand that you will be receiving a package in the mail to complete and return, also in a timely fashion. They may required a copy of a police report.

As for the retailers, they too have fraud departments and if you have a local fraud dectective working on the case they will sometimes contact those retailers for you. Otherwise it's up to you to contact them all, explain the situation and provide them with documentation of all.

Lastly, as for your credit, the bureaus are smarter these days and will flag your report for identity theft and fraud. It might take a little while to have it completely removed but you should not have any problems with major purchases. If you do (especially at a car lot) tell them to look at the top of the report for the alert field and they should see a note about fraud.

I hope I've been of some help.

[CybeRise]

That sucks man. However most fraud cases get resolved sloooooooooowly. So good luck! Get with your church and they should be willing to help some. Also you bank should be able to recover some funds due to the places taking checks without ID.

[s13sr20chris]

yeah!!!

i knew all my homies at nico would hook me up with some info! my mom has loaned me some cash and even bought us groceries(excuse to come visit the little one!). so we are good for a little while. i am so glad you guys(in particular jayson) have so much information to share. this forum has blessed me quite a bit.

thanks guys. i will pass all of this on to my wife. dang, we have a former home depot guy AND a bank guy. i am tickled pink.

my son just farted and giggled a little thank you to all my homies at nico.

God bless!

[Altiman94]

sorry to hear that. You will have it all worked out.

[Jesda]

OMFG I cant imagine the aggrivation.

[w1ngzer0]

i hope they have a choke and kick session for the bastard that did this.

[base9se]

glad to hear that people around you are helping out. hope everything works out & you get all your money back.

[skydragoness]

That really sucks to hear. Apparently none of the stores in your area use driver's licenses/state ids to run checks through their machines?

Thankfully you have a good network of friends and family to rely on. Congrats on the baby!

[PalmerWMD]

Chris,

I am soo sorry to hear about the aggravation you must be going thru.Rest assured these days you will get it all back.It will just be abig hassle.

Fred..

[574-240sx]

Ouch sorry to hear about that. We had the same thing happen to us this summer. My parents had their checks stole out of our mail box twice in a row. My parents were rembursed. The bank noticed right away and called my mom. Turns out people would follow the mail truck checking mail boxes. They would appear like they were dropping off the newpaper or flyers.

[Florida240sx]

I check ID everytime down here in Florida. I work at K-Mart(yes they are still open). I'm surprised they didn't get carded even once though. I had one lady who on all her credit cards it says see ID. We have to check to make sure their signature matches what's on the back of the credit card. I think that's a pretty good idea.

[UncleBen]

In my prayers man.

Good luck with it all, looks like you are on your way to recovery already so hopefully everything goes as smooth as it can in a situation like this.

[JDMaholic]

FRAUD - First thing to remember or know is your banks affiliation with the FDIC. If your bank is backed by the FDIC, you are automatically insured for $100,000. (side note, that also means that if you have more than $100,001 in your bank, you're only insured for $100,000.) So that being said, don't worry.

Pretty sure the FDIC is insurance to an investor if a bank goes under, so that would not cover you, I think that unless the customers produce an ID with a drivers liscence number its the stores loss, but I am not sure on that one. I know 3 people who had their checks stolen and never got any money back, hope that doesn't happen to you. Good luck, an I hope you get your money back.

[SDRonEbay]

Pretty sure the FDIC is insurance to an investor if a bank goes under, so that would not cover you.

Let me go back...I passed my Introduction to Banking course this summer.If your bank is insured through the FDIC (federally insured) and you have monies deposited into that bank, you are then covered.

http://www.fdic.gov/deposit/de....html

[silkk]

Sorry to hear! I hope you get your money back and hope they catch that bastard!

[gabossie]

It is the banks legal responsibility to provide protection for their customers. If the signitures don't match up, you're easily in the clear. Although it may take some time, the bank must reimburse you for everything you lost, then it is there responsibility to go after the retailers that accepted the bad checks. Just finished talking about this last week in my macro econ class

[s13sr20chris]

well guys thanks for the reassurance. most of my money has been reimbursed so far into my new account. whoo hoo we are very happy!

[JDMaholic]

Let me go back...I passed my Introduction to Banking course this summer.If your bank is insured through the FDIC (federally insured) and you have monies deposited into that bank, you are then covered.

http://www.fdic.gov/deposit/de....html

From the link you posted, "The FDIC protects you against the loss of your deposits if an FDIC - insured bank or savings association fails. FDIC insurance is backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government." Ya, like I said it protects you if the bank goes under, not from fraud. So in this case it would not protect him.

[SDRonEbay]

Ya, like I said it protects you if the bank goes under, not from fraud. So in this case it would not protect him.

Dude, not gonna argue with you. I think your misinterpreting the word 'fails' believing that it only means 'goes under'. I think in this instance it's more along the lines of 'fails to resolve the issue.'

http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/....html

[nismofly]

where i work back in new york, at a grocery store, we have an electronic system that verifies for stuff like this, and weve actually caught a few people, one who realized what was happening and booked. we got to tackle him in the parking lot lol.

anyway good luck getting things back to normal, it looks like things are already getting better if most of the funds have been restored.

[Anand]

I am a Fraud Analyst for AT&T Wireless now Cingular.

Whenever we get a victim, we try to take care of them ASAP. We make sure that their credit is ruined by the fraudulent act, we clear it all up for them......

Do this... call the 3 major credit beuros(sp), let them know you and your wife have been a victim of Identity Theft and that you want to put a "Fraud Alert" on your guys SSN.

that should take care of other things just beside the bank account. Just incase if they have more info on you and later try any other crap.

Next, Run your credit and see if they tried anything else. call the companies up and see if you can try to resolve it directly with them.

I am at home right now but I can get you the inside numbers to the credit places tom morning.

let me know if you need anything else...

[GoinBoostYey]

You got paypal man? If so im pretty poor right now, but I can throw 20$ your way if you need.

[SDRonEbay]

Anand reminded me of something.

You'll want to keep an eye on your account to make sure they're not using your acct number to make check by phone purchases. If one pops up...which your bank should be able to distinguish, if not look for a purchase made by check with an impossible check number....you'll need to fill out an ACH affidavit at your bank.

LOL flashback. Heard a customer service rep. once refer to it as an ACH Alpha Data....lol.

Morons amuse me.

[AZhitman]

Good showing, gentlemen. Way to look out for a brother.

Chris, hoping for all the best for you, the bride, and the new NICOnaut.

[Anand]

Alright..

here are the numbers:

Equifax: 800-272-9281Experian: 888-397-3742 <~option # 2 adn then option # 4Transunion: 800-372-8391

[s13sr20chris]

wow, you guys are a real help. i will call those numbers asap. also thanks for the offer of money, that offer shows that you are really trying to lookout. i must decline as we are doing ok now(with the assistance of family). thanks anyway.i just love nico.chris

[C-Kwik]

Dude, not gonna argue with you. I think your misinterpreting the word 'fails' believing that it only means 'goes under'. I think in this instance it's more along the lines of 'fails to resolve the issue.'

http://www.fdic.gov/consumers/....html

http://www.fdic.gov/deposit/de....html

I would look to see if your bank will dispute the charges to your account. Each bank may have a different policy here, but they may front the money during an investigation. This is usually more the case with credit cards or check cards backed by visa or mastercard. If not, I'd be looking to go after the businesses the checks were cashed at. They have a duty to reasonably identify the party paying by check. This is also true of credit cards.

You may want to file a police report for this. Then notify the stores where the checks were used. They may be able to track the usage of any gift cards that were purchased. Not sure how in depth they keep records of these transactions. They may be able to nail them when they use the cards. If I were a large business, I certainly would make the gift cards trackable to their purchases.