Be careful with your mail

[Brian_D]

So I went to one of the big blue postal boxes that are on street corners to drop off a letter. I opened the lid, put the letter on the lid & closed the lid - the letter is supposed to slide/drop in. I opened the lid... And the letter is still there! I touch the lid & find someone has sprayed a sticky coating on the entire inside of the lid.
Later I give the post office a call to report it, and this is where it gets interesting.
The postmaster knows about it. It's a known issue, people are trying to steal identities, checks, etc. He'll "send someone out to clean it, but don't be surprised if the sticky coating is back tomorrow".
He then advised me to never use those boxes; I also should not put mail in my own mailbox - I should bring it into a post office.

 

[Dan Leighton]

We had our cluster mail box for 6 neighboring houses broken into in 2022 just before the election. They were looking for the mailed ballots before we received them. Took several months to get it replaced with a new clusterbox. We had to drive to the post office daily to pick up our mail and any packages. 6 miles round trip. We always put the mail out before the carrier is scheduled to deliver/pick up mail. Never leave anything overnight or on weekends/holidays. That's when the thieves strike. We were advised NOT to use any street boxes, especially the ones in front of post offices for the same reason mentioned above or for "fishing" using something to lower into the mailbox with sticky tape.

 

[Rich Dahl]

Fortunately, here we have cluster keyed mailboxes that are out in the open at street level here. Never had an issue with any theft. Also, the mail drop off is within the locked cluster mailboxes and is a slot that drops right off so there is no way to really block any mail from going in. The downside is any packages that won't fit in the slot you either have to catch the mail person or take it to the post office. There are locked package bins for moderate sized incoming packages.

 

[Dan Leighton]

Another good tool that is pretty reliable is the Informed Delivery feature that the USPS has. About 95% accurate for what you are receiving. Sometimes a piece of mail doesn't get delivered on time usually when a sub carrier has the route. Same with packages. You can tell when they were delivered.

 

[Tim Campbell]

Learned my lesson about 10 years ago. Expensive laptop stolen from front porch.

 

[JKalchik]

Regrettably, thieves are everywhere.

There's some evidence to suggest that there are USPS internals who are stealing mail. It's not just from your mailbox or a dropbox.

WiFi jammers are illegal as <BEEEP> in this country, and are unfortunately fairly readily available. Were I to gain suspicion that a delivery service was utilizing those.....I'd have an equal complaint with the service as well as the staff. And also why hardwired devices would be preferable, IMO.

I seriously doubt that any of this is going to change until there are heads on pikes. It's too easy to get away with this and little to few consequence.

 

[LMichaels]

I complained to Amazon about it. That went nowhere since I guess you can buy the devices on Amazon

 

[JKalchik]

I complained to Amazon about it. That went nowhere since I guess you can buy the devices on Amazon

I'm just crabby enough about that sort of thing that the complaint to the FCC would be that not only is Amazon selling these illegal devices, they're also using them during deliveries, possibly to facilitate theft.

 

[Bob Bailey]

So I went to one of the big blue postal boxes that are on street corners to drop off a letter. I opened the lid, put the letter on the lid & closed the lid - the letter is supposed to slide/drop in. I opened the lid... And the letter is still there! I touch the lid & find someone has sprayed a sticky coating on the entire inside of the lid.
Later I give the post office a call to report it, and this is where it gets interesting.
The postmaster knows about it. It's a known issue, people are trying to steal identities, checks, etc. He'll "send someone out to clean it, but don't be surprised if the sticky coating is back tomorrow".
He then advised me to never use those boxes; I also should not put mail in my own mailbox - I should bring it into a post office.

I'm not surprised a bit. This is a typical governmental agency solution. Path of least resistance.

 

[Erik Tracy]

Our neighborhood has both individual and cluster locked mailboxes - depending on who the original house contractors were during the buildout.

Both have been pilfered by thieves.

Couple of times the individual boxes will all be open on a street with junk mail strewn in the street. Same for the clustered locked ones - the backs have been pried off, and mail strewn in the street.

If thieves want to get to the mail they will - locked or not.

 

[LMichaels]

My former brother in law's brother used to haul mail for the USPS. I was telling him about a "lost" mobile phone I had sold on EBay and shipped to someone. How the USPS declared it "lost", but then the ESN/IMEI became active. He laughed and told me he's watched them if they see a box where the contents aren't disguised, many times as soon as the truck is unloaded if it's a smaller item (like a mobile phone) they simply "pocket" it.

 

[timothy]

In our neighborhood the mailbox is right outside your frontdoor. Mailperson walks the block usually around noon. My Wife also has the USPS notification on her phone so she knows what's being delivered daily.