Good afternoon,

Have any other libraries experienced checks mailed to library vendors with remittance addresses in Atlanta, GA being fraudulently cashed?  My library has had four checks sent to B&T and Cengage fraudulently cashed in the last six months.  The three checks were mailed by the City of Roseville to the verified P.O. boxes in Atlanta and were cashed at both a large bank and a party store.  Our library was notified by B&T and Cengage that they had not received the checks which our Controller's office verified were cut, mailed and cashed.

After contacting the City's bank, Comerica, the City Controller contacted the local police when images of the checks showed that they were either "washed" with the payee name being removed with white-out and rewritten or signed by an unknow individual and cashed.  Local police notified other agencies and fraud claims were submitted to the post office.  

The City also had two checks (Autozone and Firestone) that were sent to post office boxes in Atlanta cashed fraudulently recently.  

The City and Library will eventually be reimbursed.  For now we are paying all invoices for vendors doing business through an Atlanta post office box by credit card as the City sets up ACH.  

Since most libraries use B&T and Cengage, I thought there may be other cases of fraud.