A Caldwell company is warning people to be on the lookout for phony checks.
Holman Transportation Services Inc. became the victim of a large check fraud-scheme and wants to prevent it from growing.
"I didn't think anybody would have a run like this,” said Robert Holman, President of Holman Transportation Services Inc. “You hear the horror stories. I do say, if we didn't have a great bookkeeper and accountant this could have went on a lot longer."
Hundreds of fraudulent checks are floating around the Treasure Valley, Holman said, and his company’s name is being used on them.
"It not only hurts our reputation, which we write hundreds of checks in the valley every week we are a large employer, but we're afraid now when we go to cash out checks they won't take them," he said.
The company wants to get the word out to protect their reputation and to protect the vendors that may be receiving the forged checks.
"Our bank says there's a fraud alert all over our account, but that doesn't help if they don't go to a regular bank,” Holman said. “Where they're going is to mostly merchants, who in turn are taking these checks and not finding out probably in time that they're stopped."
Meaning that merchant is losing hundreds of dollars. Holman said many of the checks that are being cashed range between $400 and $800.
Last week the company’s accountant noticed a withdrawal that was out of place, Holman said.
"The next morning, she checked again and there was another one and that's when I said enough," he said.
They contacted the bank, froze the account and reported this to police.
The culprits got a hold of a routing number from an old check belonging to the company that was cashed years ago. Now, Holman believes they’re duplicating that check by copying one of the company’s logos to make it look real and forging a signature.
“Pretty easy to find our logo,” he said. “We have 200 semis that run around with that logo that's on that [fake] check, and the logo they're using is not the logo that is on our checks."
This is still under investigation. It’s not clear if police have any suspects.