Think twice about putting a package or letter in a U.S. Postal Service (USPS) mailbox or express mail drop box on your local corner. Be sure to tell your clients, too, many of whom may not realize that the days are gone when it was unheard of for mail to be stolen out of large public mailboxes.
A good friend of mine who lives in an upscale New York City neighborhood had his rent check stolen out of a mailbox. He later learned his check wasn’t the only one that was snatched from that mailbox that day. A thief cashed his check after they changed the name of the person to whom my friend had written it. After a lot of back and forth, my friend’s financial institution reimbursed him — at least there was a record of the check being cashed by someone other than the intended recipient.
I was also the victim of a mail theft. I needed to return a dress to a retailer, who supplied me with a Federal Express shipping label. I packaged the dress in the box in which it had come, affixed the label, and mailed it in mid-May at a Federal Express dropbox in an office complex in my New Jersey neighborhood.
But when I went to track the package, the Federal Express website had no record of the tracking number, and I could not get anyone at FedEx’s 800 number on the phone because I didn’t have a valid tracking number! I then drove to a Federal Express processing center and shared the copy of the label I had kept. A woman from the back came out to speak with me and said they believe the contents of that drop box had been stolen. However, she said FedEx could not reimburse me because they had no record of receiving my package. She then suggested I report the theft to the local police, which I did.
My local police told me there have been a lot of thefts from mailboxes in New Jersey. The policeman I spoke with was very helpful and did look into the matter, but the perpetrator was long gone. The policeman suggested I reach out to the retailer. I admit I haven’t gotten around to doing that yet and I don’t feel very hopeful — I know the retailer didn’t receive my return.
I thought of these two experiences again today, after reading a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida. It seems three residents of the Treasure Coast area in Florida recently pled guilty in federal court for their respective involvement in a string of robberies of USPS letter carriers — they admitted being involved in armed robberies of the carriers and demanding their postal keys used to open mailboxes. Between Nov. 19, 2022, and Oct. 21, 2023, the men robbed at least six USPS letter carriers in St. Lucie, Brevard, Orange and Miami-Dade counties in Florida.
Unfortunately, stealing mail is no longer unusual. Mail thefts started surging last year, with the perpetrators often looking for paper checks they can rewrite and cash.
For its part, the USPS is trying to combat the recent rise in threats on letter carriers and thefts of mail. Project Safe Delivery, announced about a year ago, is a USPS initiative to protect postal employees and the security of the nation’s mail and packages. The USPS’s Inspection Service has increased monetary rewards for information leading to the arrest or conviction of a perpetrator of postal crimes.
Customers are encouraged to report stolen mail as soon as possible by submitting an online complaint to the Postal Inspection Service at www.uspis.gov/report or calling 877-876-2455.
