Police are looking for someone who's cashing fake payroll checks that appear to be from the Grand Strand Humane Society.
"The case is still under investigation," Surfside Beach Police Sgt. Matthew Prock said.
Grand Strand Humane Society Executive Director Sandy Brown says the fraudulent checks started being cashed sometime last week at local grocery stores, a Walmart, and small businesses. They were presented and cashed from Surfside Beach to Conway Wednesday morning.
The checks have the same bank account number as the Humane Society, but have a different address, a fake signature, and fake check numbers.
"Our employees, for one thing, don't get payroll checks. We have automatic deposit," Brown said.
In total, about eight or nine checks worth about $3,000 have been cashed, she added.
"The first thing I told the lady at the bank {was} why would they try to do that to a non profit, when we have no money? But they apparently are really good at what they are doing and they don't care."
The Humane Society isn't taking a hit though, Brown says they have closed their account and have been reimbursed. Now, the businesses cashing the checks are the ones losing out.
We spoke with the owner of Sundown Sports Pub in Surfside Beach who cashed a check back on September 7th for $190. She didn't want to go on camera but said it took a call to police until she was reimbursed this Monday. Now, all over the venue, signs are posted that read "due to the rise in check forgeries we can no longer cash checks."
"Especially with today's economy we see a rise in that activity," Prock said.
Sundown's owner told us she had issues with three fake checks just in the past month.
Prock said the best thing someone can do is if they are cashing a check that looks fake is to call the business the check is from and ask for authorization, because there are no tell tale signs.
"Unfortunately nowadays with the technology out there, there's really a lot of good counterfeit checks out there," Prock said.
