Thief steals personal checks from Naples women, tries to cash them

Two Naples neighbors say a crook stole their personal checks right out of their mailboxes and tried to cash them for thousands of dollars.

One of the women says she got an alert on her phone from her bank, saying a large amount of money was trying to be taken from her account.

Angela Rippons and her neighbor Sheila Phillips say they were furious when they found out.

“It just makes you realize that we’re always susceptible to people that have bad intentions or intentions to fraud other people,” Phillips said.

Rippons says her checks were made out to the wrong people for wrong amounts.

“I found out that my check to FPL for $83 was made to $2,450 so someone else and my check for $300 was made to this other person for $1,450,” Rippons said.

The women then called their banks saying the checks were cashed by a fraudulent person using an ATM, but due to their quick thinking, no money was ever charged to their accounts.

Naples police say this time of year brings out the worst in some people.

“These things do spike at this time of year, but we’ve only had a couple of incidents of mail theft, so we would suggest you do banking online or mail their payments in at a post office,” said Lt. Matt Fletcher with the Naples Police Department.

Both women say that even though they are not out any money, they want whoever did this to face repercussions.

“I hope they get prosecuted, I will be the first one in court let me tell you, I will do whatever it takes because we have to take people like this away from the street,” Rippons said.

And now they will be more vigilant when taking that walk to the mailbox.

Naples police say this is an active investigation, and the person who stole the checks could face federal charges.