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RTchoke
April 16th, 2009, 1:43 pm
Now the Nigerians aren't even waiting to send you an email. :eek:

:mrgreen:

Seriously though, this sucks. I can't imagine what you would have to go through to get it straightened out.


IRS Workers Stealing Your Cash! Look Who's Cashing in Your Check to the Government

ABC News Uncovers History of Contract Workers, IRS Employees Stealing Taxpayer Checks and Cash
By VIC WALTER and MEGAN CHUCHMACH
April 15, 2009


Think your income tax check is safe when you send it off to the IRS? Think again. An ABC News investigation has uncovered case after case of checks being stolen, manipulated and cashed by contract employees responsible for processing them, resulting in delayed payments and heavily disrupted lives.

"It was beyond my wildest imagination that this theft would be an inside scam," Brad Miller of Garland, TX told ABC News.

Last year, Miller sent a cashier's check for more than $20,000 to the IRS, where it ended up in the hands of a Bank of America employee in Dallas who embezzled $485,539.76 in taxpayer remittance checks.

Miller said the theft left him out of a $400 fee he had to pay to stop payment on the check, not to mention the violation he felt knowing someone had accessed his money and personal information.

"I never before gave it a second thought that my check made out to the IRS would end up in the wrong hands," Miller said.

As it turned out, the Bank of America employee, Emmanuel Ekwuruke, had stolen nearly half a million dollars in taxpayers checks, many of which he manipulated from "IRS" to "MRS" by making the 'I' into an 'M.' He then added a "MR" and his wife's first and last name, before attempting to cash the checks. Just last week, Ekwuruke, a native of Nigeria in the U.S. as a permanent resident, was found guilty of theft, embezzlement, misapplication by a bank employee, as well as theft of public money and aggravated identity theft and sentenced to 66 months in prison.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=7338110&page=1

MrShotShot
April 16th, 2009, 2:01 pm
That's why you don't make the check out to the IRS. You make it out to the Internal Revenue Service.

countmein
April 16th, 2009, 5:33 pm
Actually, if you want to do it properly, make it out the the Unites States Treasury. That's what the instructions say anyway.

MrShotShot
April 16th, 2009, 5:49 pm
Actually, if you want to do it properly, make it out the the Unites States Treasury. That's what the instructions say anyway.

Very true, but I don't think they'd have a problem cashing the former. I've read of people accidentally sending the IRS their check for their house note and when it was returned to them it had an IRS stamp over the "to" line and it had been cashed.

RTchoke
April 16th, 2009, 5:58 pm
Very true, but I don't think they'd have a problem cashing the former. I've read of people accidentally sending the IRS their check for their house note and when it was returned to them it had an IRS stamp over the "to" line and it had been cashed.

You would be surprised how a check can be altered and still get cashed. If you send a check and forget to sign it, it will still get cashed out by the bank. People should take care in how they fill out their checks.

RickRhetoric
April 16th, 2009, 6:42 pm
Actually, if you want to do it properly, make it out the the Unites States Treasury. That's what the instructions say anyway.

... and send it by registered mail;return receipt requested. Then you'll only have to worry about it being stolen by miscreants in the postal system. But they are hesitant to steal registered mail even though its tempting. Theft of registered mail always leads to an investigation and sometimes the thieves, even though they are protected by their union, if convicted, get suspended for a week without pay.