Several checks have been stolen and “washed” from mailboxes in Menlo Park according to residents and officials.
When Menlo Park resident Eric Tashman put a sizable check to the Internal Revenue Service in a mail collection box near the Bohannon Drive U.S. Post Office branch, he did not expect his bank to ask him a few weeks later if he wrote a check to a trainer in San Jose. His bank canceled the check before it was cashed.
Tashman is one of several in recent weeks who have reported mailing a check through USPS only to have it attempt to be deposited to a different recipient.
While two residents The Almanac spoke to suggest there has been a rise in mail theft, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service did not say if there had been a spike.
“I hear this a lot but (mail theft) shows up in different places at different times. So I hear from lots of customers who are shocked at the idea that people steal mail,” U.S. Post Inspector Matthew Norfleet said. “As far as all of a sudden, Menlo Park is having mail theft that it has never had before, it might be true at a particular box, or on a particular carrier route, or in a particular neighborhood. But I don’t think anybody is going to tell you that it’s dramatically different in Menlo Park than it was a couple of years ago.”
While the Postal Inspector Service is responsible for investigating mail theft, many cases are not reported, Norfleet said.
The Menlo Park Police Department has received some cases of mail theft as well.
On Oct. 6, the Menlo Park Police Department received a report that a check was mailed inside the downtown Menlo Park post office only to be altered and cashed at an unknown bank. MPPD suspended the investigation pending further leads, spokesperson Nicole Acker said
When Tashman reported his case to MPPD, an officer told them it was not their jurisdiction since the check was cashed outside of Menlo Park.
“If identity theft is involved or fraudulent use is involved, our officers and detectives investigate the cases as far as they can with the leads and evidence they are given or uncover. Sometimes this takes time, as you know many of these thefts often don’t have an identifiable suspect,” Acker said in an email. “Also, sometimes the crime of using stolen credit cards or checks is not in our jurisdiction, so that may be why the resident was told by the officer that it is not in our jurisdiction. It’s all circumstantial and complex depending on where the incident began, where and when it was reported, where the crime occurred, suspect information, leads, etc.”
Tashman said he brought his concerns to the local postmaster.
“(The postmaster) acted like she was well aware of the whole thing. She said, ‘We’ve had problems.’ It was shocking to me because the Post Office didn’t even have the courtesy to basically alert their customers,” Tashman said.
The Post Office recommends residents be careful about leaving valuable items in collection boxes.
“The one thing is we do ask people to be very cautious about leaving mail in blue collection boxes, particularly if it’s going to be there overnight,” Norfleet said. “The safest place to leave your mail is to actually put it in a postal worker’s hand. So take it into a post office or the slots inside post offices. Those are just inherently more secure than anything that’s out on the sidewalk.”
The Post Office is currently upgrading collection boxes to make it harder to take mail from but, with over 100,000 collection boxes in the United States, it takes time. Norfleet recommends residents use upgraded boxes with narrower mail slots over previous versions.
There have also been recent incidents of mail, including ballots, being stolen from residential mailboxes.
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In late September mail that was placed inside the post office, let me repeat that, inside the post office into the secured stamped mail slot, was stolen in Menlo Park. Within two days it was washed and checks cashed. In questioning this matter I was told there was an ‘incident’ at the main Post Office sorting center at Bohannon Dr. in Menlo Park. So, handing a letter to the postman, or going inside a physical post office location isn’t always secure.