March 31, 2005 Mailboxes Breeding Grounds for Identity Theft There have been quite a number of instances of mail theft from neighborhood collection boxes and from residential mailboxes in Ceres and other cities in Stanislaus County. Persons stealing mail are specifically looking for checks and personal information that they can use for "identity theft" and related crimes. Outdoor payment drop-boxes are also subject to theft as well. It is a good idea to be cautious about how you handle your incoming and outgoing mail. Thieves do various things with the mail they steal from their victims. They often attempt to cash personalized checks, and those made payable to credit card companies are typically thrown away. As you might guess, most people will not know for up to 30 days that their payment didn't make it to the intended recipient. This can jeopardize the victim's account status and create other problems. Mail thieves also look for identifying information which they can use to submit credit card applications. If they are successful, a hapless victim might wind up with thousands of dollars in credit card bills along with numerous other complications that may take months, if not years, to correct. There are things you can do to protect yourself from mail theft. The first is to never leave mail clipped to your home mailbox for the postal carrier to pick-up. If you have a rural mailbox mounted on a post alongside the road, any mail left there for pick-up is very vulnerable to theft. The use of neighborhood mail collection boxes can be risky if you deposit the mail the evening before the next pick-up day. It is smart to wait until the actual pick-up day to drop off your mail. It is even better to bring your mail directly into the post office mail drop, but I realize the inconvenience that may cause. Payment boxes for the various utility companies are also at risk, so I suggest that you deposit the payments during the daytime, or hand-deliver the envelope. It is unfortunate that problems like this one have arisen in our community, and frankly, it is simply a fact that we all have to be more cautious nowadays. The United States Postal Inspectors Office has agents assigned to investigating these thefts. The local police departments are also investigating these matters, and, in fact, two such thieves were recently arrested. The Postal Service is also in the process of replacing existing collection boxes with ones that are more resistant to mail theft. Regardless, it will take some time for these new boxes to arrive and knowing present-day criminals, I am sure they will find ways to defeat the new security features. Be careful with how you handle your mail, even the junk mail (which you should shred), and you may well spare yourself some serious problems.