Victim of Cheque Fraud

I sent out a cheque to pay my credit card early this month via Pos Malaysia using the credit self addressed envelope provided by the credit card company. Last week, when I called the credit card company to check whether they have received my cheque, they confirmed that it did not arrive. Immediately, I called the bank to check the status of my cheque. The bank branch that issued my cheque book only knew that the cheque payment was rejected. I was told by the officer after she checked with the security department that someone else tried to cash out my cheque. Somehow this syndicate managed to intercept my cheque in the post and modified all the information in my cheque, to make it payable to another person’s name. I took a scanned copy of the cheque and found that all the handwriting on it was not mine. The payee name has been changed from the credit card company to an individual name. They used the same payment amount as in my credit card bill. It seems that this syndicate is very active and they have managed to get away with some of the victim’s money. Last Thursday someone wrote to a local newspaper about his cheque that was sent out to pay his insurance premium was fraudulently cashed out by someone else. In order to avoid these problem, make sure you send your cheque using a normal envelope or bank it in directly in to the payee account. It took me half a day get this problem sorted out; go the bank, make police report, and make new payment to my credit card company.