That's what happened to a Brooklyn lab technician when a check for the balance of his retirement account got swiped out of the mail and cashed by a criminal.
So, the hospital worker got 7 On Your Side to put his case under the microscope.
He's been looking for this money since last year he tried to roll over his account in November.
The check was sent in January and he's been going back and forth with one of the nation's largest banking companies ever since.
"This was a $60,000 check that they sent like a postcard in the mail," said Mikhail Kornikh, the account holder.
Kornikh has been making contributions to his 401(k) for the last nine years. When the lab technician got a new job, he wanted to roll over those savings to a new account.
But the pension company only offered one way of sending the balance, in a paper check.
"Literally gave me two options. They said we can either send it USPS or UPS," he said. "They just stuck a stamp on it and said, bye."
"If they would have said to you, 'Would you would you like, a paper check or direct deposit?' What would you have taken?" 7 On Your Side's Nina Pineda asked.
"Of course, direct deposit. I begged them to do direct deposit. They said, 'This is our policy. This is our only way that we do that,'" Kornikh said.
"That's just that's just opening up a whole fraud avenue. Let's send a paper check instead of sending it directly to the bank. Like, why?" Pineda said.
The policy of "mail only" was a one-way street to scam the $60,000 check never made it to Kornikh's mailbox. It was swiped, washed, written to someone else and cashed. Stealing all his hard-earned money.
"So, you've been missing this check for almost a year," Pineda said.
Even after proving it was a fraud, Kornikh continued to wait for months.
"The investigations completed. They knew 100% without any kind of issue, that I was not at fault, and that they just needed to reimburse me," he said. "It's like, the type of frustration where you think there's like, no way out of it, you know, like, you're, you're just like, in this bottomless hole."
Kornikh had been going back and forth with the bank for the better part of a year, when he contacted 7 On Your Side, we got in touch with the finance company, and within a week, the check was in the mail, but this time, it was sent express and trackable."
"$59,104.24," he said.
"Awesome. That's so great," Pineda said.
"Thank you so much. I mean it really if it wasn't for you guys, I'd probably still be fighting with them," Kornikh said.
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