It seemed so simple. Two guys who bought pieces of me in the WSOP -- Tellafriend and one other guy who doesn't post on the forum -- requested checks for their pieces of my WSOP.
Because I went 2-for-7 in cashing and only cashed 4 figures both times, they ended up losing, but of course were still entitled to their proper share of what they bought.
These two guys elected for me to send them checks, which I did on 7-18.
I mailed both checks via a secured "Blue Postal Mailbox" on 7-18.
Neither check ever got there.
While I cannot prove this, it appears that both letters were stolen by someone working at the post office, and opened up.
In the following 8 days, someone created a check in their name using my routing number and account number. This is easy to do once you have my checking account info.
You just need to go to one of countless places on the web, order checks, enter my routing # and account # on the website (along with your own name), and suddenly you'll have checks in your name with my account number.
This person then went to Target and obtained a debit card using this check, which would be debiting my bank account!
They gave their own social security # and presented their own ID when doing this! I guess it's possible they used a fake ID and a stolen SSN, but it's verified that they did NOT use my name or social when setting up the debit card.
They then took this debit card on July 26, and made two purchases at two different Target stores. One was in Lancaster, CA, and one was in Palmdale, CA. Both of these areas are close to one another, but are about 60-70 miles north of Los Angeles. I live even farther away from those two cities than that.
I do not believe this was targeted at me personally, but rather a crime of opportunity by a postal worker.
At this time, Target will not tell me the name of the person who actually set up the account, but I am trying to get that out of them.
I decided to close my bank account related to this (for obvious reasons), and have opened up another with a completely different account #.
It was incredibly difficult to get Wells Fargo to agree to completely disassociate the new account from the old account. They kept wanting exceptions made to put "certain transactions through" for 90 days, and I kept telling them no. I want any transaction against that account now to bounce.
This is also really annoying because I need to set up all of the direct debit auto-pay stuff connected to that account, and I will also lose online access to all previous transactions once the account is closed (for the moment, I reduced it down to $1).
While I cannot prove it was the post office, the disappearance of TWO letters containing checks on July 18th, followed by the timing of this fraudulent debit card created through my account (8 days later), makes it very likely that's what happened.
I will be reporting this to the postmaster general's office, though I imagine it will go nowhere.
Between this and the weird Bovada account freezing (which is unrelated), this hasn't been a good week for me.