Posted on 03/16/2006 12:53:15 PM PST by APRPEH
Mar. 15 - Identity theft is the fastest growing crime in the country and it's hard to find someone who hasn't been a victim. But some accuse a government agency of actually helping thieves gain access to personal information.
Even in this age of technology, we still rely on regular mail to send and receive sensitive information. Yet some Bay Area consumers say the post office isn't providing strict enough protection for their mail.
They say the current 'change of address' system itself needs changing.
Kathleen Shecter, Redwood Shores: "We have really tiny mailboxes so the junk mail fills them fast. When we didn't get any of that I thought hmm, that's a little odd."
Kathleen Shecter's suspicions were confirmed when she discovered someone had put in a change of address request without her knowledge or consent. As a result, her mail was forwarded to an address across the bay.
Kathleen Shecter, Redwood Shores: "I've had several credit cards that I've found the bills went to the wrong place so I have delinquent bills and you don't think about the bills you don't get."
It took months to get everything sorted out and Kathleen is still baffled as to why it happened in the first place.
Jeff Fitch, U.S. postal inspector: "We do 40 million changes of address a year."
Jeff Fitch with the U.S. postal inspector's office says given the volume of address changes, the current verification system is reliable. He says Kathleen's case, which is under investigation, is rare but unacceptable.
Jeff Fitch, U.S. postal inspector: "One case is one too many and anytime somebody has to deal with all these different issues, it's one too many."
Right now, if a change of address request is made online, a credit card billing address is used as part of the verification. If the request is hand-written, verification notices are sent to both the current and forwarding addresses.
Kathleen Shecter, Redwood Shores: "Great. But it came a whole week later after stuff had already been forwarded."
Unless a more secure system is mandated by Congress, consumers need to take precautions.
If your volume of mail drops, check with the post office immediately.
Track your bills so you'll know right away if one or more stops arriving.
Don't dismiss correspondence from the post office.
Jeff Fitch, U.S. postal inspector: "If you receive a card, take the time to read exactly what it says."
Any change to the postal system would have to come at a congressional level. Bay Area Congresswoman Anna Eshoo is reportedly interested in looking into this, but would not comment further.
This title is misleading. it isnt clear from the article if all of the victim's mail was re-addressed or only some of her credit accounts. changing address on an existing credit account for the purpose of stealing the credit is possible if the perpetrator has indeed stolen other mail or documents which can verify the previous address and if the perpetrator has created an identity at the new address.
What they often do is make the change of address for one of the adults in the house, like the husband. That way mail is still coming in and it is less likely to be noticed that some is missing. Meanwhile, what mail is being diverted is being used against you.
The change of address "service" from the post office is a way for them to sell your info to junk mailers. I didn't use it when I moved and saw quite a drop in junk mail at my new residence.
Now if i could just figure out how to stop the post office from cramming in those newspaper-type ads, they'd stop smashing my real mail.
I went round and round with my local DMV office a few years back.
I didn't get the renewal card in the mail for my truck. I called the local office and asked where it was. They said it had been mailed. I said I never got it. I then asked where they mailed it to. They said someplace in D.C.
I said how in the heck did the address get changed. They said somebody must have made a mistake. I asked to have it changed back but they couldn't do it. They said address changes had to be made in person. I said again how did you change it in the first place. Sucked in.
I was lost in the Zone of Government workers, stuck in a circular conversation with no end, unable to convince them to just hit a key and change things back.
My PO Box of many years was hijacked by someone I knew and it took darn near an act of Congress to get it back, believe it or not, so I know how easily it can happen.
The person was a hobby club "rival" of mine who hated me for some reason and decided she would divert all the mail from my box to herself! She is an IRS agent, no less. She went to my little suburban post office, rented a box right next to mine and forwarded ALL of my mail (not just the doll club mail--this was my primary mailing address for all my business and personal mail, plus bills, for 7 years at the time!) to her new box number.
It was over a week before I caught on about not getting any mail. Just thought I wasn't getting much for some reason. I went to my postmaster and found out what had happened when they pulled the forwarding order.
It didn't end there, however! They decided that the MAIL in question (ALL addressed to ME, personally) was "in dispute" and it would take a higher-up postmaster to get my mail back and give it to me. Mind you, this other person had never been a customer of this post office before that week and I had been for 7 years--she didn't even live in this suburb, but many miles away! Didn't matter to them at all. In fact, the postmistress YELLED at me!
The only lucky thing for me was that they had held all my mail that didn't have the doll club address on it, so I did get my own real business and personal mail back - but not the hobby stuff addressed to me. The same witch tried to close down my club bank accounts, too - but the bankers were smarter than the post office and headed her off at the pass.
IRS agents think they can just do anything personally they want to anyone else. It's very scary. She sent an attorney to one of our club meetings to videotape it and then had "papers" served on me in front of everyone to make it look like I had done something wrong. Same papers were sent by mail and hand-delivered at my home. They said I was to "cease and desist" TALKING about this woman, which was not something I had ever done to begin with.
Turned out, she was wiretapping the office phone of a friend I talked with on occasion (he worked in a former IRS office building!) AND had a minion listening in on my cordless and cell phone from nearby my house, with a police scanner! I've used land lines ever since then. All I could do was file a complaint about her to an IRS whistleblower who was gathering such stories - but I never heard another thing back.
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