It was a weekday at the end of March. On the way home from his office in Lexington, Andrew Changelian, a Bedford resident, dropped four envelopes into the USPS mailbox outside of Cary Hall — each containing a check written for about $45 to pay the excise tax on his cars.
A few days later, at the beginning of April, Changelian said he logged onto his private Citizens Bank account to pay some bills. That’s when he realized a large sum of money was missing.
“I’m wondering, ‘why did my CPA already send in my taxes?’ because he usually does it on the 15th,” he said. “He doesn’t do it before the 15th.”
Struck with confusion, Changelian reviewed images of checks he had recently written on his online baking account, and that’s when he saw it — one of his excise tax checks was fraudulently altered.
“I realized that that check that I had written for $43 has now been washed for $14,500,” he said. “[It was] just ripped out of my account. I was shaking.”
What Changelian experienced is called “check washing” — when someone steals a check and washes it with a chemical solution that removes the ink so they can re-write the check for a larger amount and deposit it in their account.
The Lexington Police Department has received 40 reports of check washing amounting to about $700,000 lost since the first of the year, according to Jeff Chaisson, community service detective for the LPD.
Included in those reports is a complaint from Anna Maria Dimos, business manager of Eye Look Optical in Lexington, who discovered that three of her checks had been altered in February, adding up to about $30,000 fraudulently taken from her business account and her parents’ personal account.
“I wanted to hit my head against the wall, like, are you kidding me right now?” she said.
Dimos said she is frustrated that she was not notified by the LPD that residents are experiencing heightened rates of check washing in Lexington so she could take necessary precautions to keep herself, her business, and her parents safe.
“This is what really gets me and is a thorn in my side,” she said. “[The LPD] should have notified the businesses and the residents, sent something in the mail — don’t wait until this happens to us to just write it on the police log for the week.”
Dimos’ money was swiftly refunded to her Eagle Bank and Citizens Bank accounts. But Changelian was not so fortunate. He said it took over four months for his missing funds to be returned to his account at Citizens Bank, where he said he has been banking since he was a child.
“They’re toothless, you know,” he said. “I’m out $14,500, I have bills I have to pay, I’ve been coming to this [expletive] bank since the 1960s when it was Lexington Savings Bank.”
It was not until July 25, the day after Changelian sent Citizens Bank c-suite executives an email threatening to sue them if his money was not refunded, that his $14,500 was returned.
Residents of neighboring towns, such as Arlington, are also experiencing increased mail theft according to YourArlington’s police blotter. In fact, Chaisson and Colleen Dunbar, LPD’s lieutenant detective, said increased check washing in Lexington is a small part of a nation-wide organized crime trend.
“It’s not just one person going and stealing checks,” Dunbar said. “This is an organized crime activity that is happening throughout the country right now.”
In an attempt to help curb the number of check washing reports in Lexington, Dunbar said the US Postal Inspection Service installed alarms on some of the town’s mailboxes which will alert police if the mailbox is opened.
“So if it goes off on a Sunday morning at 5 am, we know that it’s not a postal carrier,” she said.
To stay safe from check washing, Dunbar and Chaisson recommend you:
- Conduct your banking online.
- If you cannot conduct your banking online, bring your check into the post office itself to be mailed out — do not drop it in a blue mailbox.
- Use black gel ink to write out your checks because it is more difficult for fraudsters to wash off.
If you believe you are a victim of check washing, contact the Lexington Police Department at (781) 862-1212.
Dunbar and Chaisson also urge residents to report the crime to the US Postal Inspection Service either through its website or by calling (877) 876-2455.
I agree that the LPD should do more to update the public about this trend. I had $9,000.00 stolen from my account through mail theft in Lexington when a check I mailed that was for $200.00 was re-written. It should be known that when I saw a copy of that check, you could TELL that it had been re-written, but the ATM that the thief deposited it into did not catch this. It took 4 months for Citizens Bank to refund my money.
In this article 2 customer’s complaints ned about the unhelpful response of citizens bank. I am hearing a lot complaints about this bank. Be aware:
Are you an adult who takes responsibility for yourself and your financial matters? It’s your job as a consumer and citizen to educate yourself and be aware of what is going on around you. Warnings about mailbox-fishing and check-washing have been published in print media, reported in visual media, and presented in online media for the past year. It’s not the role of the police department to personally inform every citizen in town of the latest scams; it’s your role as a human animal to be aware of threats present in your environment.
I had thought that the mailboxes fitted out with the chains could prevent mailbox-fishing… and they can. You see, what none of us victims had known was that the thief has the master key to the mailboxes in Lexington. This essential information was eventually disseminated to the town’s residents by the Police Department, however, it came a little late.
And, like I said, you could actually see quite easily that the check had been altered on its face — but the bank allowed it through anyway. The ink I used WAS somewhat tamper-proof, just not perfectly. But sure, go ahead and blame the victim, Luanna, I just hope that no one else gets victimized in this or any other fashion.
And other “human animals” keep getting more clever about how to scam people. Contrary to what you said, having the police report on the latest scams provides a useful service, as not everyone reads every bit of information out there about scam techniques, which change frequently. Would you be saying to this to your elderly parents who might not be scam-savvy and don’t read all of the news items about the scam techniques being used?
My suggestion is that we all write our checks with sharpie pens. From my understanding, there is no possibility of washing. I hope this is helpful.
Better still, send checks electronically through your bank. I got a check “washed” a year ago when I sent my estimated taxes to Mass DOR. Forget the new mailboxes. All it takes is for someone to offer a less than honest mail carrier a lot of money for the mail in their bag or box destined for DOR — or an employee at DOR pocketing some of the incoming checks — and you will get your check “washed.”
I stopped sending checks in the mail after accounts of check washing had appeared in the Lex Observer a handful of times, and I’m grateful for that information, but I sure feel bad for the people who have faced losses due to check washing, even if they got it back, because the theft must have caused a lot of stress. Before I quit mailing checks, I bought a pen with black gel ink, which I like for additional reasons. These days I pay bills for which I previously would have mailed checks by credit card. But maybe I’ll get sharpie pens and send checks by mail again. Thanks Leslie G. for that info!
I take all mail into the post office now because I don’t want greeting cards and letters to get snatched up by mailbox thieves (or my mail in ballot!). I pay as many bills as possible online and deliver my tax payments to staff at town hall. You can have alerts on your bank accounts — I receive texts for charges over a certain amount as soon as it is deducted from my account. (Also alerts on credit card charges). Hope I’ve got it all covered!