TOLEDO, Ohio — WTOL 11 has been bringing you stories of people who had their checks stolen out of the mail, with the thieves then re-writing the checks and cashing them for thousands.
The newest victim, Jim Ripinski, has lost over $11,000 after two separate incidents with his checks at a postal box off of Main Street in east Toledo.
To make matters even worse, he's been dealing with these financial headaches during what he calls the most challenging period of his entire life with his wife, Debra, battling with illness.
"She's very talented and very forgiving for living with me," said Ripinski.
The couple was thrown a cruel twist of fate last March when Debra's health took a turn for the worse.
"First she had open heart surgery and then she had a second pacemaker put in. Then she had some other issues and then she contracted COVID. It's just tough," said Ripinski, with tears in his eyes.
Overwrought with grief and seemingly endless trips to the doctor, Ripinski didn't notice when a $32 check he dropped off at the Main Street postal box back in July suddenly turned into a $4,000 expense.
"I lost track of my checks, and having the overdraft, it was automatically covered," said Ripinski.
Ripinski said it wasn't until October that he noticed the hole in his account. After doing some digging, his bank concluded someone had stolen the check right out of the post box and cashed it. They re-wrote the check so whomever Ripinksi was sending it to, and even the amount, were completely different.
"But with persistence and the help of the bank manager, we did get that straightened out and they did put the money back in my account," said Ripinski.
End of story, right? Well, not so much. Because only a few days later, he put another check in that same postal box.
"And it was taken out of the box once again on Main Street, erased and written up for $7,400.32," said Ripinski.
Luckily this time his bank was able to flag this check before it was cashed. They said the handwriting was a dead giveaway, but after two incidents in a year, Ripinski said he's fed up.
"I lost a lot of sleep over this, along with all the things with my wife, and I would recommend the post office get on top of this as soon as possible and straighten this out," said Ripinski.
WTOL 11 reached out to local representatives with the United States Postal Service about Ripinski's problems and didn't hear anything back, but the station will refer to their previous statements on issues like this one.
"Customers are encouraged to use collection boxes during normal operating hours. After operating hours (specifically after the last posted collection box time), customers are encouraged to drop off mail INSIDE the Post Office. There are many Post Offices with 24-hour lobby access," a post office official said.
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