Boulder’s Shambhala Credit Union cleared in cross-country check fraud case

Daily Camera (Boulder, CO)

April 06--Boulder's Buddhist credit union has been cleared in a multi-state case of potential check fraud that involved a California woman, her Alabama-based insurance company and the Boulder Police Department.

Boulder police spokeswoman Shannon Aulabaugh confirmed this week that it has closed its investigation into the matter -- a case that never really got off the ground to begin with.

"The victim told us that they were going to send us a copy of the check in question and never did," Aulabaugh said. "Unless the reporting party gets back to us, we have no evidence that a crime occurred."

The "check in question" was one allegedly sent to Ramona Catalanello, of Long Beach, Calif., for $8,445.24 after her 2010 Ford Escape was totaled in an accident. Catalanello claims she never received it; her insurance company, Birmingham, Ala.-based Infinity, said it had been cashed at Shambhala Credit Union in Boulder.

A digital copy of the check provided to the Camera showed it had been signed with the name of Ramona Catalanello with the note, "Pay to the order of Jose Agustin Pena." Catalanello insisted it was not her signature, and that she didn't know a Jose Pena.

Absent from the image was identifying information about the institution that deposited or cashed the check. Officials from Shambhala and Regions Bank, which holds Infinity's account, said that typically, a check would have the serial number of the bank that handled it.

Shambhala maintained from the outset that it had never received the check. The 42-year-old credit union is small, familiar with all its members and would never cash a check without identification, President Alex Halpern said, noting that a check of that size would have raised additional flags.

Infinity's Greg Mitchell, manager of total loss claims, backtracked on his claim to Catalanello that the check had been cashed at Shambhala after the Camera reached out to him with questions. Mitchell did not respond to requests for comment.

In an email to Catalanello, which she shared with the Camera, Mitchell claimed that the check had been deposited at a JPMorgan Chase location in Tampa, Fla.

Shambhala's CEO, Bob Sutherland, said the credit union is not affiliated with JPMorgan Chase in any way and does not utilize the national back to process checks, as Mitchell had alleged in his email.

"I have no idea how we got involved," Sutherland said. "We have been harmed for no reason by the accusations of an individual who had wrong information (or) somebody covering their tracks at this insurance company."

Regions spokesperson Jeremy King said the bank was still investigating the matter, but its "investigation suggests the check was intercepted at some point while it was on its way to Ms. Catalanello.

"We cannot say why Shambhala would have been brought into this by whomever was behind this."

Sutherland said the Camera article about the matter had resulted in several calls to the credit union from concerned members. Harder to calculate, he said, is the damage done by prospective members who came across the story while researching Shambhala.

"The headline was provocative and included language around check fraud and entanglement, pejorative words (that) are the last words you want in the paper if you're a financial institution," he said. "(It) was pretty detrimental to our reputation. Your reputation is pretty much everything in our business."

Shay Castle: 303-473-1626, [email protected] or twitter.com/shayshinecastle

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