in Cypress Point North
by Scott Cray, Heatherwood Circle
My wife and I experienced this the hard way almost two years ago. Rushing out of the house, we put our completed tax return (and a check to the IRS) into our mailbox and put the flag up.
We thought nothing of it until two weeks later and our check to the IRS had not been cashed. We investigated further and discovered that there was a small $25 charge on our bank account. We used the info from our bank statement to locate the business to which OUR money had been paid.
It turns out that a criminal stole our tax return from our mailbox! They used our social security numbers AND our check routing numbers to order an ATM card from a company in Oklahoma. With that card, the crook would have had access to all of the money in our bank account. And the ironic part of it all is that this crook was having the ATM card delivered to our home address . . . where they were planning to pick it up!
We immediately called the police, who then tranferred the case to a U.S. Postal Inspector. It turned out that this criminal had done this same thing to several homes in our area and around our region. This crook was brought to justice and is now behind bars!
As a result, we are very careful with our personal info and our mail. We purchased a locking mailbox from Home Depot and removed our social security numbers from everything we could (checks, drivers license, etc.)
Hopefully this email will help our neighbors be more careful as the tax season approaches.
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