people are bad

While I really wanted to post about my new serger and the fabulous world it has opened for me, sadly, I have a tale of woe and a word of caution to pass on. Garlic cheesy biscuit in hand (needed a little comfort food given the day I've had) I'm prepared to embark on my sad journey.

The joys of serging will be forthcoming.

Money is tight for most people these days. If it's not for you, good for you cause every day must be Christmas, but for the rest of us, we need every little bit in order to pay bills, diaper our children, and eat.

If your employer was sending you a check, and you are like most people, you can be sure that you'd be looking forward to it. Standing by the mailbox, even. And I was. Trust me. I'm a teacher. Our pay has been frozen since 2008 (and it wasn't that much to begin with).

A paycheck from my employer (301 money for all you educators out there) was sent through the mail. Normally, all my checks are direct deposit, yet this particular one was a live check and my employer sent it throughout the mail rather than contact me to pick it up. It was stolen out of the mail (or out of my employers office) and cashed. A check for $923.15.

I found this out this morning from my employer as I was inquiring about the check I had been expecting for weeks now. She called her bank to find out what happened. Initially, everyone--my employer, her bank, and the bank that cashed the check--refused to take responsibility.

My employer reassured me saying "This has never happened before. None of our checks have been stolen from the mail before. There's nothing I can do about this."

Wait a minute, this sounds familiar. OH WAIT, I heard all this before when in my 3rd week teaching at said school, a student took out a whole lotta rage on Mazda3. She said the same thing. This never happens and there is nothing she can do to help me. Luckily, I'm no pushover and I was not about to let over $900 that I earned while keeping teenagers from committing felonies slip through my fingers.

After 2 visits to different banks, dealing with about 5 bankers, making about 10 phone calls, and breaking down into tears at the Bank of America and sobbing to the banker about my crying 4 month old at home, trying to buy a home, and sad story I read in the news (hormones suck), I finally got somewhere.

 I found out that the person deposited it into their own account through an ATM. The person banks with Wells Fargo---as do I---and was able to deposit it. Ironically, once we knew the check was cashed but before we knew which bank cashed it, we went to our bank, Wells Fargo, to ask about what they recommended for us to do. They spoke about how the bank that cashed it should take responsibility and by the way could we interest in you in fraud protection. Well, turns out we need protection from Wells Fargo's ineptitude.

Long story short--and trust me, it's long--I should be able to get the money. My employer has to file a claim through the bank that issued the check. They then will have to go after the money from Wells Fargo. They will then give my employer the money back and she can then re-issue the check. But that wasn't enough for me.

I filed a police report because I want the jerk to pay and I would like to stop said person from doing this again. The police officer came, took down our info and gave us some bad news. Basically, this happens ALL the time and the fraud detectives are buried under thousands of claims. People actually follow around the postal delivery workers to steal mail from unlocked mailboxes. Also, banks usually refuse to hand over any information to the police unless subpoenas (usually issued by a judge) are involved forcing them to hand it over. Wells Fargo straight up told me they know exactly who did it because they deposited my check into their account, but that the info was confidential and they would not give it to me. The officer told me that if he walked in, badge and all, they would do the same thing. Police request fraud info from banks and rarely get it without extensive legal action.

The take home for me all you folks:

1.) Banks are kind of evil. 

2.) People are bad and they can and will steal your mail.

3.) It's easy to commit fraud using ATMs. People can deposit checks using ATMS without even needing any information about the person to whom the check is actually written. They will get away with it from the banks unless you go in and freak out on them.

4.) The po-po's can't do much. Fraud is so rampant that unless it's a huge amount of money, the police's hands are tied. Banks will not actually give the police information about people THEY KNOW are thieves without a subpoena and police CAN'T get subpoenas for everything given the sheer amount of fraud. Banks would rather pay out the cost of the fraud than take more money and time to stop them.

Be careful, guys.