Sharper - 7:30 pm on Sep 17, 2003 (gmt 0)

The first thing you need to do is file a police report. That may or may not be a good option for you depending on where you are in Argentina, but at least try.

With a copy of the police report in hand, you should be able to contact the bank the check was cashed at and explain the situation, including sending them a copy of the police report. Depending on the bank and the country's banking laws, that may be enough right there to convince them to fix it for you. At the very least they should look upon future deposits in that account with suspicion and you may hinder the thief's future actions.

If the check has already been paid out by Google's bank, they have no way of getting the money back in order to pay it to you. I have seen insurance agencies, etc... that have a pre-existing relationship with the thief (such as an agent stealing a refund check) take it upon themselves to prosecute the offender, but in this case it's really the fault of your postal service for not delivering the check to you. Sadly, if you have a government monopoly for a postal service, you are unlikely to get anything like actual "service" out of them in a case like this.