Minimize the Impact of Stolen Checks

With both mail theft and identity theft on the rise, having checks stolen can be a huge hassle. I know from experience how hard it can be to deal with the aftermath of mail theft. Several years ago, 800 new checks I'd ordered were stolen from my mailbox, along with credit card convenience checks. No matter what kind of paper trail thieves may leave, the unwillingness or inability of law enforcement to pursue them will be frustrating. But it is possible to minimize the damage that theft does to your finances.

In my case, the thieves not only wrote over 50 checks to nearby businesses (all under the amount that would have qualified as a felony), they also wrote a Discover card convenience check for $700 that was deposited at a local bank. I live near Phoenix, a metropolis with several suburban cities, so law enforcement had difficulty determining jurisdiction. Most of the checks were written in neighboring Mesa, but Mesa police said the crime should be reported to Chandler, the city where they were stolen. Chandler's police department said it should be pursued in Mesa.

I even contacted the Postmaster General, who put me on hold to take a report about a robbery in progress at a retirement community. Thieves were breaking into a bank of mailboxes with a screwdriver even while I was on the phone with her. With a problem this widespread, enforcing the law seemed next to impossible.

The worst part was that these thieves shouldn't have been hard to catch. They'd used the Discover card account number from the convenience checks to have a pizza delivered. Domino's would only release the address where it was delivered to law enforcement, who evidently couldn't be bothered. I thought when the Discover card fraud department got involved, something would happen. But the bank where the convenience check was deposited wouldn't release information on the account holder, even to police, though we had the name to whom the check was written. They had no reason to believe their customer had done anything wrong, and perhaps she hadn't. But she could have told police where she got the check.