dallas – “It's alarming and unfortunate that it's happening in my city!”
For 28 years, Kim Pettigrew has been designing homes and businesses out of her showroom in the World Trade Center in Dallas.
And… “For 28 years, I've cut checks at work and mailed them at the main post office in Dallas.”
A furniture showroom owner said the same manager deposits the same business checks every week. “Same place, almost same time. Exactly the same bank account number I've had for 28 years.”
until now.
On Friday, February 16, Pettigrew's manager dropped off a business check for nearly $3,000 in one of the drop boxes at the Dallas General Post Office on Interstate 30.
But three days later, she received a disturbing phone call.
“The following Monday…I received a call from a financial institution called Plus Financial in Fort Worth and was told that a woman would present a check and give me cash,” she said.
Pettigrew's check was supposed to be sent to her bank in New York. But less than 72 hours after it was dropped off at a Dallas post office, a Fort Worth woman was in possession of the counterfeit goods and tried to cash them at PLS Financial on McCart Avenue.
“She's not someone I've ever written a check to.”
Pettigrew said she found out this was happening when a PLS employee called her asking if she should cash the check.
Pettigrew immediately called her bank to report the theft, but her troubles didn't end there.
Pettigrew said she received a call from another PLS employee “on Wednesday morning, about the same time I received the same call on Monday,” asking if she should cash the check again. Same check, same woman, same location.
“If you don't get that check and you call the Fort Worth Police Department, I don't know what else to say. It's a scam.”
This time, Pettigrew convinced PLS to send him a copy of the fake check.
Ms. Pettigrew showed the I-Team what the original check looked like, drawn on a 401K corporate trust in New York. The fraudulent checks that appeared to have been copied were identical except for a few important security measures.
“They couldn't recreate the holographic or security emblem, but other than that it was definitely the same way I would have written a check to this person.”
Ms. Pettigrew said the quality of the counterfeits led her to believe that the person presenting the check at PLS had the original.
Within days, it was stolen and duplicated. Pettigrew is furious and confused by the speed of events.
PLS sent Pettigrew the driver's license that the woman repeatedly presented when she tried to cash the check.
The I-Team confirmed that the license was a legitimate Texas document and that the woman was a bona fide Fort Worth resident. We visited the address multiple times and left messages on the video doorbell to try to find out if the license had been stolen or if a woman was involved.
No one at this address has responded to our request.
The I-Team also visited PLS's location in Fort Worth. No one locally wanted to talk to us, but the corporate legal team told us that it was company practice for employees to call Pettigrew if they were suspicious of any transaction. I did.
A lawyer for PLS also told the I-Team in an email that the company had received a search warrant. PLS said it is sending surveillance video of the check cashing attempt to detectives in Fort Worth.
Fort Worth police and the U.S. Postal Inspector are investigating, telling the I-Team exclusively that this is an “open investigation.”
The I-Team has learned that such investigations are proliferating across the country. We obtained a U.S. Treasury Department Financial Crimes Enforcement Network alert sent to financial institutions across the United States a year ago.
“Despite the decline in the use of checks in the United States, criminals have increasingly targeted the U.S. mail to commit check fraud since the COVID-19 pandemic,” the report said. '' warns of an increase in mail theft.
According to the report, from March 2020 to February 2021, USPIS received 299,020 mail theft complaints. The alert warns agencies that this is a “161% increase” compared to the same period last year.
The Treasury Department received more than 680,000 reports of check fraud in 2022, nearly double the number from the previous year.
The top line of the alert alerts agencies to “a nationwide surge in check fraud schemes targeting the U.S. Postal Service.”
“The Department of Justice has been a great partner,” said U.S. Postal Inspector Sean Smith.
Smith said mail theft and check fraud are on the rise and the public should do what Pettigrew did and report crimes. However, he acknowledges that consumers don't always respond well.
“We don't know if we'll be able to contact everyone, but that doesn't mean there's not an investigation going on behind the scenes,” Smith said. “The reports you send us may help our case. I can't do it,” he said.
Pettigrew isn't giving up. She says she plans to fight the fraud she experienced until her case is resolved.
“It's really concerning and it's unfortunate that this is happening in my city,” Pettigrew said.
Business owners were forced to change all their accounts. She says her company has been seriously affected by this attempted fraud and she is now determined to see the thieves in her case prosecuted.
“People rely on the United States Postal Service,” Pettigrew said.
“I want someone to hold us accountable. We have a big problem here, and unless someone admits we have a problem, it's never going to go away.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Postal Service in Dallas declined to comment and referred the I-Team to the U.S. Postal Inspector General.
The I-Team also investigated two other mail theft and check fraud cases involving hundreds of thousands of dollars in business checks taken from a Fort Worth post office and a $70,000 check stolen from another post office in Dallas. The incident is also being investigated.
Research reveals three common methods used by mail thieves.
- The Department of Justice reported several internal incidents nationwide involving postal employees.
- Thieves use fishing rods to dig items out of boxes.
- Attacks on postmen to steal arrow keys are also a big problem. The arrow keys are master keys that unlock many mailboxes within a particular district.
CBS News investigated the systemic problems that have allowed widespread arrow key mail theft to continue to occur for decades.
All of these investigations are part of a collaborative effort by CBS News nationally to dig deeper into this important issue.
The I-Team continues to search for answers in cases involving Texas, especially this Dallas business.
