A New York woman trying to pay her bills lost $20,000 in a check washing scheme, according to United States postal inspectors and police on Long Island.
The woman, a senior citizen, said she had to pay a second time after learning the checks were cashed by a thief.
It comes less than three weeks after another Suffolk County family reported falling victim to same the low-tech crime, which investigators say is very difficult to prevent.
Checks were stolen from mailbox, woman says
Since May, Jean Gioglio-Goehring said she dropped three checks into a mailbox outside the North Babylon Post Office, made payable to her medical insurer, a contractor and the town tax receiver.
None were ever received by the payees, the widow and grandmother on a fixed income said.
When Gioglio-Goehring was forced to write new checks, she said the post office explained how the first ones may have been stolen.
“I spoke to the postmaster general and he said what they do is they put a wire, they go into the mailbox and they pull out mail. It’s called fishing,” she said. “What the Postal Police had showed me is that they literally took Wite-Out and they erased the payable to.”
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Gioglio-Goehring said she’s still waiting to hear back from her bank’s fraud department. The town said her late fees cannot be waived due to state and county law, she said.
“I’m feeling very, very victimized,” she said. “There’s no recouping it for me.”
Since her husband’s death and the check washing incidents began, Gioglio-Goehring said she turned to crafting to help make ends meet.
A growing crime on Long Island
Check washing, a low-tech crime that involves washing ink off signed checks and writing them out to someone else, sometimes for greater amount, is a growing crime on Long Island, investigators say.
Gioglio-Goehring’s case was at least the second reported check washing incident in Suffolk County this month.
Bay Shore family trucking business owners, Rich and Dan Miller, said their checks mailed at the Bay Shore Post Office were also fished and then washed.
The father and son said they were later cashed in Brooklyn for nearly $3,000.
“I went to the post office to file a complaint and they said this is an everyday occurrence,” Rich Miller said.
Police say the best defense against check washing is paying electronically or physically handing the envelope to a postal clerk.
The Postal Inspection Service says it is working diligently to prevent mail theft nationwide.
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