Box is secure, but mail isn't coming

BURIEN -- Sal Dena wanted to protect his identity and financial information and that of his neighbors from thieves who have sporadically hit mailboxes in his quiet neighborhood just south of Seattle.

He dropped $1,200, plus labor and concrete, to install a lockable cluster mailbox like the ones the U.S. Postal Service often installs for new housing developments.


		Paul Joseph Brown / P-I
	Sal Dena waves to a neighbor while waiting for his mail to arrive. Dena installed a secure mailbox, which the Postal Service is refusing to use.

But a week and a half after moving into his new house, Dena still can't get his letter carrier to deliver his mail, and local postal officials can't fully explain why.

Local postal inspectors advise residents to buy secure mailboxes for their regular home delivery. If residents have mailboxes in a common location or cluster, they usually have to get permission from the Postal Service to change their location, because new secure boxes often won't easily fit with the others.

Dena and his neighbors sought permission and followed directions, but have found themselves at an impasse with local postal workers, who want the new box moved.

"I did everything they asked me to," Dena said. "They said, 'Buy this box.' I bought this box. They said, 'Put the box here.' I put the box here."

Dena hasn't received a straight answer from his carrier or her supervisors at the Burien post office about what to do. He calls every day, leaves a message, sometimes gets a promise for a return call and then waits.

The manager at the Burien post office did not return calls to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, either.

Ernie Swanson, customer service official and spokesman for the Postal Service in Seattle, initially said he was told that Dena put the box on his own property when officials asked him to place it across the street. But the box is across the street from Dena's property.

Then, Swanson said he was told that Dena had installed the new mailbox where the letter carrier would have to back up to drive away. But backing up was not necessary.

In any case, Dena will have to move the box and its concrete foundation to get delivery, Swanson said in a final response.

As of yesterday, no one from the Postal Service had given Dena any further instructions about what to do to get mail delivery. He has been picking up his mail at the Burien post office.

"It's not just that I'm not getting my mail," he said. "But their customer service seems to be really lacking, and there's just nothing I can do about it."

Homeowners can replace a single mailbox with another single mailbox, as long as it meets Postal Service standards. Most boxes for sale in local hardware stores do so, Swanson said.

But they can be expensive -- $100 or more for a unit that would be adequately thief-proof.

For the convenience of its own letter carriers, the Postal Service will often donate new locking mailboxes in "clusters" to new housing developments. These clusters usually feature 12 to 16 mailboxes in one location and make deliveries easier.

Locking mailboxes, though, also help cut down on theft.

"There is a concern about the security of the mail," Swanson said.

Dena's neighbors, who are also eager to use the new locking boxes, are frustrated.

"I don't see a problem with wanting security," said Jan Kniestedt, a recent victim of mail and identity theft. "A lot of people wouldn't realize it unless it happened to them. It's become a problem."

The biggest problem with mail theft is the identity fraud that follows.

ID theft is more common in Western states -- six of the top 10 states with the highest rates of ID theft are in the West -- and is the fastest-growing financial crime nationwide, according to the Federal Trade Commission.

Investigators have traced a substantial percentage of ID and mail theft to drug addicts, and authorities have correlated the increase with the rise of the methamphetamine problem.

It has been at least a decade since authorities began to see a nationwide explosion of mail theft, said Seattle postal inspector Jeff Scobba, who worked on a mail theft task force in Los Angeles in the 1980s.

The problems started in the Western states, Scobba said, where small-time drug addicts learned how easy it could be to get money committing identity fraud.

Kniestedt, who lives across the street from Dena, recently squared away accounts that had been targeted by identity thieves.

A woman stole a box of Kniestedt's checks out of her flip-open mailbox two years ago. Even when the woman was caught, the theft continued because Kniestedt's checks had been sold and dispersed throughout the region.

Kniestedt's ordeal was such a hassle that it resonated down the block and was the primary reason Dena and his neighbors decided to upgrade their mailboxes.

"The mail is the easiest way to steal it," said Jay Foley, executive director of the California-based Identity Theft Resource Center.

"A thief is more or less going to do what's easy," Foley said. "Just because it has a lock, doesn't mean it's safe. ... But if your neighbor has a lock and you don't, which one is (the thief) going to hit?"

FIGHTING MAIL, IDENTITY THEFT

To prevent mail theft, homeowners should:

Buy a sturdy, lockable mailbox that cannot be easily pried open or stolen,

Deposit outgoing mail at the post office or in the blue boxes outside of the post office during the day,

Never place mail in a blue USPS mailbox after the last pick up of the day. Those big blue boxes are often a jackpot for mail thieves.

If you cannot afford a secure mailbox, try to pick up your mail as soon as possible, or have a trusted neighbor do it for you.

If you've been a victim of identity theft, contact www.idtheftcenter.org The Identity Theft Resource Center is a non-profit group that helps people after their identity information has been stolen and used. Victims of identity theft also should file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission by visiting the online site at www.consumer.gov/idtheft.

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