Thieves are ‘washing’ NC homeowners’ property tax checks. How to avoid the scam.
Orange County homeowner William Heizer thought he paid his $9,040 property tax bill as usual in December until he got a letter in late January saying the payment was overdue.
After contacting his bank, he reviewed the cashed check and found someone using a different pen and handwriting had replaced the words, “Orange County Tax Collector,” on the “to” line with a different name before depositing the check into a Truist account.
Heizer reached out to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, and an investigator obtained a video of the person who deposited the check. The person was in a car and wearing a mask, making it impossible to identify them, Heizer said.
Roughly $3,000 of his tax payment was spent at Amazon, and the rest was withdrawn before the account was closed, he said.
“They know the name of the woman whose bank account it went into, but she said she didn’t know how it got in there,” Heizer said. “Apparently, it is not illegal to have money coming into your checking account and not know where it came from, and to go ahead and spend it.”
Heizer is among multiple taxpayers who saw checks totaling over $300,000 stolen in the last year through similar “check washing” scams in Orange and Wake counties, officials say.
Check-washing thieves use commonly available chemicals, such as acetone or bleach, to erase the payee information from a check, according to Experian. The check is made out to a different person, sometimes for a higher value, and deposited into a bank account.
The account holder typically launders the money by withdrawing it from the bank, sometimes taking a cut, Experian reports.
Tough to investigate, prosecute
The U.S. Postal Service reports check-washing scams are growing. Last year, the N.C. Attorney General’s Office reported about similar scams happening statewide.
They’re among the toughest crimes to investigate, Orange County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Alicia Stemper said.
The person who steals the check and washes it is not the one who withdraws it from the bank, she said, and the person who deposits the check into the bank account typically conceals their identity and uses an automated teller machine.
It’s not a crime to deposit money into someone’s account or to spend the money in your account, Stemper said.
Orange County Tax Administration Director Nancy Freeman said her office worked this year with 15 taxpayers who had their property tax payments “washed.” The taxpayers were also advised to contact their banks and local law enforcement about the thefts, she said.
The Sheriff’s Office is investigating several check-washing cases, and the Hillsborough Police Department is working with the U.S. Postal Service to investigate another. Five cases have been reported in Wake County, and 19 in Chapel Hill since January 2024.
In most cases, the victims have been reimbursed by their banks, local officials said.
“We are empathetic regarding these situations and can work with the taxpayer,” Wake County spokesperson Arevik Badalyan-Drewek said. “We ask them to provide us (with) documentation regarding the fraud, such as images of checks that were altered, carbons of the check they wrote, letters from banks, or police reports.”
How is the mail being stolen?
What’s still unclear is how the thieves steal the checks.
Stemper said the Orange County victims mailed their checks from different places, including post offices, blue USPS dropboxes, and neighborhood mailbox kiosks. None have been stolen from private mailboxes, she said.
But mail travels to several USPS processing centers before reaching its destination, Chapel Hill town spokesman Alex Carrasquillo said.
“The mail is being intercepted somewhere while in transit to the Tax Office,” Stemper said. “It is important to understand that at peak times, some of the Tax Office’s mail is diverted to an out-of-county processing center.”
At least one check mailed from Hillsborough was cashed in the Charlotte area, town spokeswoman Cheryl Sadgrove said. Heizer said his check was also deposited at a bank in Charlotte.
USPS Postal Inspector Jessica Adams, who works out of the Charlotte Field Office, said the agency continues “to aggressively pursue perpetrators that use the U.S. Mail system to further their illegal activity.”
There are also security procedures, cameras and other measures being taken to avoid theft in USPS facilities, she said, directing questions about ongoing USPS investigations to the agency’s Office of Inspector General.
“Every day, the U.S. Postal Service safely and efficiently delivers millions of checks, money orders, credit cards and merchandise. Unfortunately, such items are also attractive to thieves, and that is why Postal Inspectors across the country are at work to protect your mail,” she said.
What should taxpayers do?
Heizer said his bank refunded the money, so he only suffered the nuisance of cleaning up the mess. Next time, he might take his son’s advice and pay his property taxes through the county’s online payment system or a bank draft, he said.
That’s assuming, of course, that the payment system website hasn’t been hacked or cloned, Heizer said.
Local tax officials and law enforcement also recommended taxpayers use those payment methods or pay in person.
Orange County: Pay online at pay.orangecountync.gov, or in person at the Orange County Tax Office, 228 S. Churton St., Hillsborough.
Wake County: Pay online at wake.gov/payonline, or in person at one of several locations.
Durham County: Pay online at tinyurl.com/eu3wzx3h, or in person at the Tax Collector’s office, 201 E. Main St. in Durham.
Stop check-washing and mail fraud
▪ Gel pens: A report from OrboGraph, an AI company specializing in financial fraud prevention and automation, says checks filled out using a gel pen, instead of a regular ballpoint pen, are harder to erase. Black gel pens are especially durable, fraud experts say.
▪ Write tight and fill space: Fraud experts advise leaving as little space as possible between the numbers on your check and drawing a line through any blank spaces, to stop scammers from adding to the amount.
▪ Don’t let mail sit in your mailbox for more than a day.
▪ Drop outgoing mail in blue USPS collection boxes before the last pickup or drop off mail in person at the local Post Office.
▪ Sign up for Informed Delivery to get daily emails about letters and packages that should arrive.
▪ Help prevent crime by joining neighborhood watches and local social media groups. Report anything suspicious to 911.
▪ Learn more about Project Safe Delivery, launched in 2023 to prevent robberies and mail theft: uspis.gov/project-safe-delivery
NC Reality Check is an N&O series holding those in power accountable and shining a light on public issues that affect the Triangle or North Carolina. Have a suggestion for a future story? Email realitycheck@newsobserver.com
