I came across some bad news this morning involving mail dropped off in those blue mail boxes. It seems that there has been a rash of mail being stolen out of them, especially on the St. Louis side of the river. One person mentioned on a neighborhood "Nextdoor" page that their store got a check stolen out of the box behind a local bank and that business had to shut down all accounts to make things safe. It seems thieves can "wash" checks they steal and rewrite them for their own purposes.
This information brought out many many responses from people who have had the same experience after using the stand alone blue mailbox. It seems as though the same key opens all of the boxes and someone who gets a hold of one can do a lot of damage to checking accounts. One person told of a check in a birthday card to her nephew had the same thing happen.
The best advice anyone had to protect checks from being cashed by bad people is to use a gel pen which uses ink that can't be washed (erased) to use for something else.
Thieves are always a step ahead of us. Dale has a tendency to either leave outgoing mail on our home mailbox for the mailman to take back to the mail center, but he does often drop bills in blue boxes when he's out. I'm going to be looking for a gel pen today after doing some research on which pen works best to prevent fraud.
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