The Jeffco Action Center helps thousands of impoverished individuals and families each year.
As the economy has worsened, the center has been packed with families seeking shelter, food, clothing and help with utility payments.
So this morning, the busy officials at the Lakewood facility were stunned when they received what they characterized as a “cruel holiday gift” – a bogus $40,000 check.
It was delivered this morning via a UPS overnight letter.
Mag Strittmatter, the executive director of the center, immediately realized something was amiss, the center said in a news release.
She thought several things appeared fake, including that $40,000 was misspelled, physically the check was larger than normal, and the signature on the check was photocopied.
The check purportedly was sent from a Hong Kong business and signed by the vice president of charitable giving for the business.
Strittmatter called the Idaho company whose routing information was on the check and learned that while they normally process nine overnight packages a week, in the past week more than 300 packages have been charged to their account.
Strittmatter then called the person whose name was photocopied on the check. That man, she learned, runs a small fishing boat company in Baltimore. He told her the check was fraudulent.
The Bank of America informed the Action Center that the check was non-active.
Strittmatter has passed the information on to the FBI and the Colorado Attorney General’s Office.
In the past 2-1/2 years, the JAC has served 57,000 unduplicated clients. Each year, the center serves as many as 30,000 people.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
