Midge Laurin dropped a check in a U.S. Postal Service mailbox on Central Avenue near her Southwest Side home in September — a $30 contribution to her cousin’s daughter’s school in Crystal Lake.
Three days later, she and her husband logged onto their bank account and found the check had been stolen, rewritten and cashed to a “Crystal E. Hunter” for $9,475.81.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Laurin, a retired office manager. “How did they know I even had the money?”
Laurin’s husband, Francis, called Chicago police but was referred to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, where he filed a report.
The couple visited their bank and were told it could take up to six months to recover the money. A bank employee told them seven other customers were recent victims of the same crime.
“They looked at us as if it was an everyday occurrence,” Laurin said.
The stolen check scheme, called “check washing,” exploded during the pandemic, leaving many victims struggling for months to recover their money. And it’s gotten worse in the last year, experts said.
In most cases, thieves steal checks from mailboxes and erase the ink using household chemicals. They then rewrite the check to a different person and cash it at an ATM or currency exchange.
“We are senior citizens on a fixed income and never expected this to…
