A Kansas man is still waiting for a Gary woman who’s now been charged with theft to return $4,000 he accidentally sent her in May.
The man was moving to Shawnee, Kansas from St. Louis and used Oasis Moving Company, which accepts automatic clearinghouse payments between banks, a probable cause affidavit filed Monday said. The company has a phone number with a 214 area code, but the victim said he was given a number with the same digits but a 219 area code, according to the affidavit.
After the man sent the money, he realized he sent it to the wrong number after a company representative called and said it never received his payment, court records said. He tried to get his bank to reverse the charges, but they couldn’t.
A representative from his bank did talk to the person at the 219 number — identified as Stephine Marie Dack, 33, of Gary — and Dack told the representative she would return the money but couldn’t through the payment app because she had a limit on her account, court records said. The representative then said she would send Dack an overnight envelope for Dack to send a cashier’s check.
She has not yet returned the money, court records said.
After Dack refused to return phone calls from the victim and the bank representative, a Gary Police detective went to her house to talk to her, but she didn’t answer the door, according to the affidavit. He then served a search warrant to the payment app and found out the name of her bank, to which he sent a search second warrant and found she received — and spent — a $4,000 payment on May 6.
As of November, the victim still hadn’t received his money, the affidavit said.
Dack has been charged with theft where value of property is between $750 and $50,000, a Level 6 felony. Police have issued a warrant for her arrest.
Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
