The New England RV Dealers Association is reporting that two of its members have experienced incidents of check fraud associated with payments made to Dometic for supplies.
Major’s RV Service Center and Long View RV both reported instances where checks issued to Dometic were cashed by someone who changed the payee name and address, according to NERVDA President Bob Zagami. He issued a media alert to warn other NERVDA members.
Zagami’s alert didn’t specifically state how many checks were cashed or a dollar loss associated with the incidents.
Trey Miller, vice president of marketing for Dometic, said the company is taking the matter very seriously and has started an internal investigation. He said he was first alerted to the situation on Thursday and that, as of this morning, he has not heard of any other similar cases.
Miller said an outside, third-party company handles Dometic’s check processing for these accounts.
For his part, Zagami said, “We are not accusing of Dometic of any wrongdoing here! Somebody inside or outside the company is causing great pain to our dealers, and perhaps other dealers around the country. This issue must be addressed and the perpetrators brought to justice here.”
Zagami said the issue was first brought to his attention when Major’s RV Service Center reported that Dometic called the business stating that its account was overdue, but that the service shop’s bookkeeper was able to confirm that it had made payments to Dometic and that the checks were cashed.
“Dometic stated that they had not received the checks nor cashed them. After researching, we downloaded copies from our bank. Someone had intercepted the checks … and had used white out to erase the payee name and the payee address and then typed in their own name and address (in Indiana) and cashed the checks,” David Major, owner of Major’s RV, reported to NERVDA members in the media alert.
“Our September check to Dometic is also missing (though not cashed and now stopped). It seems only our checks to Dometic are affected and the check was cashed in Indiana, so we believe it is a problem in the Dometic area only,” he added.
Following the alert from Major’s RV, Molly Meehan, the controller for Long View RV, responded, “We had the exact same problem. Our bank notified us as the check cleared with the check number and dollar amount. The culprit changed the pay to the order and took the money.”
According to Zagami, Meehan and Major both reported that when they initially reached out to Dometic about the issue they felt the company was not sufficiently responsive to their concerns.
Miller said Dometic’s executive leadership team has been made aware of the situation and reiterated that the company is conducting an internal investigation. “We take this matter very seriously,” he said.
At 10:15 a.m. MT today, Dometic issued the following additional statement:
Nordea, a third-party bank that Dometic, along with hundreds of thousands of other businesses, utilizes for banking and payment processing has informed the company that they and other banks have been the target of mail theft. In a communication provided from the Postal Inspector to Bank of New York Mellon, multiple suspects have been apprehended in this case. The U.S. Postal Service has also confiscated six checks in the alleged thieves’ possession, of which two were destined for Dometic lockboxes at Nordea. Dometic has been provided the customers information and will work closely with the two companies to assist in any way possible.
Contrary to speculation of this possibly being related to a Dometic employee, Dometic employees never have physical possession of any checks destined for a Dometic lockbox. Therefore, those accusations are completely unfounded and simply not true. In addition, it has been confirmed that this is affecting multiple businesses utilizing Nordea and other banks, not only Dometic.
Any Dometic customer, especially customers in the New England states, being notified of a past due amount that they suspect to have actually paid, should immediately contact their bank to ensure they are not part of the mail theft surrounding Nordea lockboxes and to recover any lost funds from their institution. Dometic would then ask that you call 502-873-3523 to report any confirmed incidents or for any further questions that you may have.
Dometic takes this and any issue relating to customers very seriously and will continue to investigate and work closely with Nordea to ensure this issue is resolved.
