Woman loses thousands after writing check to individual, thinking it was her credit card company

A woman lost more than $13,000 after she mailed a check to an individual instead of her credit card company, police say.

The victim contacted the San Marino Police Department to report the incident last week.

Police met the unidentified woman on the 500 block of Berkeley Avenue in San Marino around 1:55 p.m. last Friday.

She told officers that she had mailed a check to pay off the balance of her credit card, but when she went to use the card again for another purchase, the card was declined.

She contacted the credit card company to find out what went wrong and learned that it had never received a payment.

Confused, she contacted her bank to see if they could track down the check she’d written and sent off.

What they discovered, police said, was that the check had been made out to an individual, not the credit card company, and was successfully deposited into another bank.

The mistake led to the woman losing a total of $13,354.50, police said.

Officials have not said what led to the woman sending the check to the unnamed individual, but said the incident is being investigated as a case of check fraud.

Anyone with information about this or similar incidents should contact the San Marino Police Department.

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