WAYNE, Mich. (WXYZ) — Kim Allen said she dedicated 10 years to the U.S. Postal Service and retired earlier this month from the Westland post office. However, on her way out, she said she didn’t get a paycheck at the end of December.
“1,666 dollars," Allen said.
That’s how much she said her check in late December was worth and what was never deposited in her bank account.
“We all worked really hard in December. Some people lost a lot," Allen said of employees at other locations.
She said the first indication anything was wrong with her paycheck was a letter from the U.S. Postal Service dated Dec. 17. It states, “The Postal Service recently detected unusual activity associated with your USPS self-service account.”
She said she received the letter on the Dec. 21 but by then, it was too late. Someone apparently had already stolen her information and intercepted her money.
“They say that people were logging in through Google to a mirrored website that looked like .. To the postal site, and that’s not the case,” Allen said.
Since then, the Postal Service put up a notice on their employee Liteblue webpage letting employees know that starting Jan. 15, they’d be required to do multi-factor authentication. It’s an added layer of security when signing into their accounts.
But where’s the money? She said USPS won't reissue paychecks unless the banks return the money.
"I called payroll. They said the net to bank had been changed to this account number that was on this paper, and they were going to send out letters of indemnity. And if the money comes back, great. If it doesn't, sorry," she recalled.
While Allen said she's the only person affected at the Westland post office. She's part of a Facebook group where people across the country expressed sharing the same experience. 7 Action News briefly chatted with several of them.
Allen explained, “I just wanted people in the area to know what's going on because they might be afraid to come forward or they might not know what to do. They're just getting the runaround like we've all been getting. You're not alone. We're all in this together.”
7 Action News reached out to The Bancorp, Chime bank and Stride Bank for comment. As of Wednesday evening, we're still waiting to hear back.
7 Action News also reached out to the Postal Service, which replied, “The Postal Service is investigating why some USPS employees have not received their paycheck.”
