Local woman says $42K check for new BMW stolen from post office box
La Quinta resident Tersa Rudow, 73, loves her brand-new BMW 430i.
“Oh, it’s heavenly. It drives like a dream. It is just a fabulous car,” said Rudow.
But, what she doesn’t love is the financial jam in which she now finds herself.
She says her Chase Bank check, which she originally wrote to BMW Financial Services, for $42,700.01, was stolen from a desert post office mailbox, “washed”, and written out to a “Jasmine P. Livernay”.
The retired administrator says she learned the check had cleared, after receiving a call from a Bank of America check fraud unit in Phoenix.
“People have the gall to go out and cash these checks that don’t belong to them,” said the retiree.
Since learning what happened with the check, Rudow says she filed a report with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office, opened a case with the U.S. Postal Inspector, and says she has been hounding the local Chase Bank branch to cover the loss.
She says a manager at the branch told her the money “would be reimbursed”, but said she was told it could take anywhere from “30 to 60 to 90 days”.
Rudow says she’s not happy at all with how Chase and Bank of America have handled everything.
Rudow says she dropped the payment into one of the mailboxes at the La Quinta Post Office on Friday, August 10th.
We stopped by the Chase Bank looking for a comment, and a manager was not available.
A manager at the post office in La Quinta would not comment.
“I’m upset because it has happened to other people and not just me,” said Rudow.
Rudow says a post office employee told her that crooks steal mail from mailboxes by putting sticks, covered with double-sided tape down into the mailboxes, and pulling out correspondence.
Rudow says she told BMW Financial Services about what happened with the check but is now concerned that if her loss is not covered soon, she might lose the car.
“I don’t know when the bank is going to replenish my money,” said Rudow.
We’ll continue to follow Rudow’s case.
Postal officials say the safest way to drop-off mail at the post office is to drop it into a slot inside the office.
