By John Pacenti
Ocean Ridge discovered to its chagrin that the days of the trustworthy postman are a thing of the past. For the third time in two years, it has been the victim of alleged fraud by postal workers pilfering checks.
A $40,000 check on July 16 was stolen and washed from a Boynton Beach postal branch, said Town Manager Lynne Ladner. The latest fraud followed a minor incident where two checks were stolen in August 2023 and a fraud of about $100,000 in June 2022.
Ladner said the $100,000 fraud occurred when a postal worker picked up checks inside Town Hall. Ocean Ridge then started hand-delivering checks to Seacrest Boulevard and Boynton Beach Boulevard postal branches, she said.
“We’ve used both of them and it doesn’t seem to matter,” Ladner said.
The latest fraud disrupted town business. “We ended up having to stop payment on the other two checks that we sent out that day because we didn’t know if they all got pulled,” she said.
After the first two incidents, the town moved to electronic payments in recent months except only for when a printed check is necessary.
The fraud was discussed during the July 25 Town Commission meeting as commissioners followed up on their previous approval of transferring the town’s accounts from City National Bank of Florida to TD Bank.
Ladner, who discussed the fraud after the meeting, said City National took a year to reimburse Ocean Ridge for the 2022 fraud.
“We had, at any given time, between $5 (million) and $8 million in their bank and we can’t even get people to pick up the phone to talk to us,” Ladner said.
When Ocean Ridge installed a new financial management system, City National didn’t update its contacts promptly, Ladner said. “They failed to process our payroll so none of our employees got paid,” she said.
City National and the post office did not immediately reply to email messages seeking comment.
Criminals see snail mail as a gold mine these days.
Delray Beach police announced on July 16 that they had arrested five people in connection with a ring that would rob postal workers at gunpoint to get the keys that opened cluster mailboxes and blue collection boxes.
Investigators say they identified at least 2,000 victims who were defrauded of at least $800,000.
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