Unsecured mailboxes make for very easy and very low-risk targets for theft, as one Spokane Valley neighborhood found out.
“I got a text message from my neighbor across the street saying somebody’s been through the mailboxes,” says local resident Staci Manos.
“Some people had, we noticed like IRS papers that were there, a lot of open and ripped up mail, some of it was like credit card offers.”
These are the kinds of documents that County Sheriff’ Sergeant Dave Reagan does not want falling into the wrong hands.
“They either steal your outgoing checks when you pay your bills, which have your name and your account number on them and they can either be washed and that check cashed or they can take that information and make their own counterfeit checks.”
He adds that it will be the long-term damage to a person’s credit score that will do the most harm, not money lost as banks tend to return money lost through identity theft.
Reagan recommends that people rent a P.O. Box or buy a locking mailbox to prevent mail theft.
“The prevention is a whole lot easier than the correction, if they get their hands on your credit,” he adds.
Spokane Valley is located in Washington and is home to 89,755 residents as of 2010.