BEACHWOOD, Ohio — If you visit the Beachwood post office on Green Road near Chagrin Boulevard anytime soon and you wonder why the drive-thru collection box is taped up after business hours, Walter Hill can tell you why.
“Some of my bills weren’t being paid, so I went to the bank to find out what happened to my checks,” said Hill. “I found out someone stole a check, altered it and made it quite more than I had made the check out for."
Someone made the check for $5,000 dollars more than what Hill initially written it, he said the check was for his sewer bill and who whoever did this cashed the altered check.
"I also had four checks stolen from here, but only one was cashed," said Hill.
Bradley Wheeler has a similar story.
“The mailbox was kind of full but I do remember jamming it in there," said Wheeler.
Same post office, same drop box, but his bank caught both of the checks he sent out before they were cashed.
“They only whited out the person that was receiving the check, my name was on the signature line. Everything else was my writing and the bank was able to stop it,” said Wheeler.
Beachwood police said in the past month they have received 13 reports of stolen mail from the Beachwood Post Office.
Police said the U.S. Postal Inspector is investing. News 5 reached out to USPS for comment and we haven’t heard back.
Investigators suggest people walk into the post office’s 24-hour lobby to drop off any mail and try to pay your bills electronically, if possible.
"We had to call the credit agencies and freeze our accounts," said Wheeler.
As far Hill’s money, he says it took over two weeks, but his bank finally refunded him just hours before our interview.
"It still put me behind and costs me extra money to do what I had to do because I’m the one who gets the punishment once the check is gone,” said Hill.
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
