Cautionary tale: Local woman victim of money order fraud

She called AT&T right away -- they confirmed the payment had never been received.

Parton pays her bills with money orders because she doesn't want to have a checking account. She's used money orders, without difficulty, she said, for a long time.

She'd purchased the money order at Wal-Mart, which contracts with Moneygram International, a Minneapolis, Minn., firm, for the sale of money orders in its stores. Importantly, though, once the money order is issued, it's up to the customer who bought it to keep track of it. Any disputes or refunds are handled only by Moneygram.

So Parton filled out a form provided by Moneygram, and for a nonrefundable charge of $15, received copies of the money order in order to confirm where it went. The print on the forms she received was quite small -- nearly unreadable -- so she had enlarged copies made at Wal-Mart. That cost her another $9.48.

It's quite clear from the money order copies that the money order was not cashed by AT&T. The name in the space for "Pay to the order of" was changed to incorporate those letters, and was eventually either directly cashed by a bank in Providence, R.I., or deposited into an account at that bank without verification or identification from the holder.

For another fee of $25 --again, nonrefundable -- Moneygram will process a claim with the bank that inappropriately cashed the money order and, they said, possibly refund the money in three to six months. A note on the form makes their policy clear. Even if all the rules about submitting the claim are followed, "this … does not GUARANTEE a refund will be issued and mailed to you."

After reporting the fraud to the Marshall Police Department and the Saline County Sheriff's Department, Parton and her daughter, Lynn Parton, brought the documents to The Marshall Democrat-News, hoping we would do a story on her situation as a warning to others in similar circumstances.

When we agreed to do the story, we also did some checking of our own on Parton's behalf.

A call to the Providence bank in Rhode Island proved to be a dead end. All they would tell us is that they apparently did cash the money order, but they wouldn't provide any additional information.

Since we already knew what Moneygram was prepared to do, we contacted AT&T to see if they would help. We knew of at least one other customer who'd had the same thing happen with a money order, so we told them that, too.

To our surprise, they immediately put their security department to work, and in a few days, we were notified that AT&T had credited Mrs. Parton's account with $15 for the cost of the copies, $10 for the cost of the enlargements, and another, smaller amount for the late fee they'd added when the bill was not paid on time.

AT&T also said they would not disconnect Mrs. Parton's phone line while the remainder of the problem is worked out.

We heard from AT&T again on Monday, Dec. 1, after we faxed them copies of the altered money order. They said they would investigate further and have an answer in perhaps a week to 10 days.

We'll report on the outcome. In the meantime, Parton said AT&T advised her to pay her phone bills at Patricia's grocery store, rather than mailing a money order, even in the envelope AT&T provides.

Contact Kathy Fairchild at marshallhealth@socket.net