NBC 7 Responds recovers $$ for San Diego mason who lost thousands to check fraud

Don’t let his slow walk fool you. Ardel Victor Ross, 86, is still very much involved with his company Vic Ross’s Masonry which has been around since the late 70s.

For almost 50 years he’s been involved in so many projects in San Diego County, including the Home of the Padres.

“I built all of Petco Park, all of the masonry work in there,” he said, “about 256,000 blocks that we put in the inside.”

According to Petco Park, Ross’ contract he received to build the stadium back in 2004, at the time, was the largest ever given to a black subcontractor. 

His business has seen it all when it comes to construction, no doubt. But in December, he says he was blindsided by a call from the bank that holds his business account.

“They asked me if I had written a check to a Rosemary. I said, ‘No, I don’t know no Rosemary,’ and come to find out Rosemary was in Florida,” he said.

The news hit him like a ton of bricks. His bank told him someone seemingly stole a check for $8,604.90 he mailed out to CitiCards back in November, It was washed and a different name was plastered as a payee. It was then cashed draining Ross’ business account of thousands of dollars.

“Eight thousand dollars is quite a bit of money, you know, that’s quite a bit of money to give away to somebody when I was paying my bills,” Ross said.

He added for several months, he couldn’t get anywhere with his bank, so he turned to NBC 7 Responds for help.

We reached out to U.S. Bank right away and several times. They never responded to any of our emails. However, a few weeks later, Ross told us the bank had given him every cent of the money he thought was long gone.

“I’m really thankful because it just made me feel a lot better now and make me, you know, that I have somebody that could come to my rescue,” Ross said.

He said that he can now go back to focusing on his business that for decades has helped San Diego grow, one brick at a time.