NOTTINGHAM, Md. — An envelope containing 25 checks mailed from inside a Baltimore County post office never reached its destination. Now, at least three of those checks have surfaced with altered amounts totaling more than $35,000.
The checks were intended to pay for tickets to a community crab feast. Together, all 25 were originally worth approximately $5,655.
Instead, the missing envelope has left members of the organization dealing with suspected check fraud, bank investigations and disrupted finances.
On September 5, the secretary of the organization hosting the crab feast, says she deposited an envelope containing 25 checks into a mailbox inside the Nottingham Post Office on Mercantile Boulevard.
The envelope was addressed to Solomons, Maryland, but never arrived.
Madge Jones, who chaired the crab feast committee, wrote two of the checks.
"One was for $2,325. The other one was for $150, all for tickets to this crab feast," Jones said.
At the September 27 event, Jones learned the organization didn't have enough money in its account to pay its vendors.
"I was told that there wasn't enough money within the account to pay the bills for the caterer and the crab people," she recalled.
Jones says she wrote personal checks to help cover the expenses, including payments to the local fire department and other vendors.
But one of those checks bounced.
"Do you know how embarrassing that is in a community where we have lived for 30 odd years?" Jones said.
Two days after the event, on September 29, Jones received a call from PNC Bank's fraud department.
At first, she thought the call itself might be a scam.
After additional calls, she eventually reached someone who told her there was a problem involving a check drawn on her account.
One of the checks she had written for the fundraiser had been changed to $8,000 and made payable to someone she didn't recognize.
"I don't know a Natajah, and if I did, I don't like her well enough to give her $8,000," Jones said.
Jones went to her bank and learned her second check had also been altered.
"One of those checks paid a $4,600 BGE bill, but it wasn't mine," she said.
Records shared with WMAR-2 News indicate that check was changed to $4,612.97. The transaction was subsequently refunded.
Another check from the same envelope, originally written for $75, was changed to $23,041.52 and cleared the account holder's bank.
That account holder has since been reimbursed.
So far, three checks from the missing envelope have been identified with altered amounts totaling more than $35,000, despite all 25 originally being worth about $5,600 combined.
Most of the money involved in the identified transactions has been recovered or reimbursed.
But Jones says $8,000 remains tied up as the banks investigate. WMAR-2 News Mallory Sofastaii contacted Jones' bank, Atlantic Union Bank, for an update on when her funds will be available to her. A spokesperson replied, "We take fraud very seriously and understand the impact situations like this can have on our customers. Due to our privacy obligations, we cannot discuss specific customer accounts."
Jones says the situation has created additional financial headaches, including having to close accounts and address banking arrangements tied to her Social Security payments.
No one has established where in the postal system the envelope disappeared or who may have taken the checks.
However, the Nottingham Post Office was among four Baltimore-area postal facilities examined in a recent audit by the USPS Office of Inspector General.
The audit identified three missing or lost arrow keys at Nottingham, along with four additional keys that were not properly recorded in the facility's inventory.
Arrow keys are used by postal employees to access mail receptacles and collection boxes. Auditors warned that inadequate oversight of these keys increases the risk of mail theft.
There is no evidence connecting the missing keys to this envelope or establishing that the checks were stolen by a postal employee.
The findings were part of a broader examination of mail-delivery operations in the Baltimore area, which also identified problems involving delayed mail, package handling and other postal procedures.
The woman who mailed the envelope has filed complaints with postal authorities and police.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service told WMAR-2 News that allegations involving suspected theft inside a post office or postal facility fall under the investigative jurisdiction of the USPS Office of Inspector General.
The Inspection Service said complaints it receives involving those circumstances are referred to OIG.
WMAR-2 News has requested information from OIG about this specific case but has not received a response confirming whether an investigation has been opened.
The OIG previously confirmed that multiple check-theft investigations in the Baltimore area remain ongoing. It has not established whether this incident is among them.
WMAR-2 News also requested an interview with Baltimore's new postmaster about the findings of the federal audit, but USPS declined.
If you suspect a mailed check has been stolen, contact your bank immediately and ask whether the payment has cleared. If it has, request a copy of the processed check and examine the amount and payee.
Ask the bank about its fraud-dispute process, whether the account needs to be closed and how to protect automatic payments or direct deposits from disruption.
You can also report suspected mail theft to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and USPS Office of the Inspector General.
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