Decatur Police Sgt. Jennifer Ross sends in this alert to the community…
Decatur Police are investigating mail theft that occurred in the Lenox Place neighborhood on 1-24-14. A complainant reported mail was removed from her mailbox between 5:30 pm and 8:20 pm. Officers canvassed the neighborhood and recovered mail belonging to eight additional residents on Melrose Avenue, Adair Street, Lansdowne Avenue and Drexel Avenue strewn on the sidewalk and streets. One resident reported a check missing. At this time, no other items have been reported to be missing. Based on the circumstances, it appears the suspect(s) was walking through the neighborhood.
There was also a theft of outgoing mail in the 300 block of Mead Road reported on 1-21-14. In that case, the mail contained outgoing checks that were taken from the mailbox overnight.
Prevention Tips:
- – Take outgoing mail, especially outgoing checks, directly to the post office or USPS mailbox in your area.
- – Promptly remove mail from your mailbox once it is delivered.
- – If you observe someone walking through your neighborhood going to multiple mailboxes, please call police immediately and provide a detailed description of the person, what they are wearing and what direction they are going.
***Thanks to the observations and quick call from a Decatur resident in the South Candler Street/Midway Road area on 12-26-13, officers were able to locate and arrest a mail theft suspect and recover stolen property.
For more tips, go to https://postalinspectors.
uspis.gov/investigations/ mailfraud/fraudschemes/ mailtheft/tipthieves.aspx
I bought a locking mailbox after this sort of nonsense happened on my street. Mail letters at the post office. (eat at Chai Pani!. It’s a twofer!)
Don’t ever put bill payments/checks in the outgoing mail at your street box – and for darn sure don’t put that little red flag up. It’s a sure sign to criminals there’s easy money to be had.
I’ve heard this and abided by it (mostly), but don’t really understand what a miscreant could do with a check made out to Georgia Power for a specific amount. My paper checks do not have DL# printed on them, only street address. Please educate me, thx! (It’s a moot point for me now, as I live in a building where outgoing mail goes into a slot in the lobby. But I’m curious.)
The checks have your bank and account numbers on them. That’s all they need to print fake checks.
We had all our outgoing bills lost or stolen one month (in the time before you could pay online) and it was a big hassle–we didn’t find out until we started getting late payment notices and we had to sort everything out with the companies and the bank. It was so long ago that I can’t remember what specifically we had to do but I do remember there were a lot of phone calls involved and from then on we used a drop box for outgoing bills.
We had outgoing mail that included bill payments stolen out of our mailbox. The criminals used the checks to create fake checks made out to them and cashed $2500 against our account at 3 different banks in 3 different police jurisictions.
It was a nightmare. We did get the money refunded from the bank. I filed reports with Decatur Police, Atlanta Police, Fulton County Police but the people were never caught even though the bank had them on camera and their finger prints.
Actually, there is a way to chemically treat the checks that removes the ink. Once the check dries, it can be made out to “Cash” in virtually any amount under $10,000. Forged check is then presented for cash at a bank, and the forgery is not caught until you check your account. I only know this from Oprah, but then it must be true!
Someone printed up fake checks on our checking account about 10 years ago, and used them to buy things all over Georgia and Alanama. It’s trouble when your checking account suddenly has thousands less than you thought it did.
Online bill pay through any bank’s website is the best way to pay bills in my opinion. The bank guarantees the payment will be made on the date you assign (provided you have the money to cover it of course). I haven’t written a check to pay a bill in years. Checks are mostly used now to pay for things at the school or other small, local things where you’re handing the check to the recipient.
My monthly statement now has an average of 3 or 4 actual checks written. The rest are direct debit or credit.