Post Office Scam

[Optimistic Paranoid]

When you drop a letter in a mailbox, how many of you check to see if it really dropped?

This appeared in today's New York Post:

"Now I’ve heard everything.

You already know about most of the high-tech scams being pulled these days. Like the phone call from a person who sounds awfully foreign butclaims to be your grandkid in trouble overseas and in need of money...

The scam I’m going to tell you about today is pretty much as low-tech as they get. In fact, it’s no-tech.
 
Scoundrels are going to post office mailboxes and coating the inner lids with sticky substances so that letters don’t slide fully into the box..."

http://nypost.com/2017/05/24/this-post-office-scam-is-as-low-tech-as-thieves-can-get/

 

[hepcat]

Mailbox fishing is nothing new. Crooks have used un-coiled coat hangers with gum on the end to fish mail out of boxes for years. This is just a new variant... It used to work on bank deposit drops too in the days before baffles and surveillance cameras.

Fortunately, it's not all that common as most blue boxes are in active public places. It's the ones in that are in relatively obscure locations that are usually the targets.

 

[ArtW]

yup, heard of that before myself.
it's why I go in when I drop at the PO

 

[XFILE36]

When you drop a letter in a mailbox, how many of you check to see if it really dropped?

This appeared in today's New York Post:

That happens at my local post office often.  I called them after seeing a rope in the box and touching something sticky.  They said they use the sticky roach traps.

 

[John61CT]

Remember in Nora Ephron's "When Harry Met Sally"? She takes forever to mail a stack of letters, checking to make sure each item went down the slot, Harry goes nuts!

Turns out Sally was right

 

[Optimistic Paranoid]

Remember in Nora Ephron's "When Harry Met Sally"? She takes forever to mail a stack of letters, checking to make sure each item went down the slot, Harry goes nuts!

Turns out Sally was right

There was a scene on one of the Monk shows where he dropped a letter in the box, then checked the opening like a dozen times, then waited around until a postman showed up and tried to verify that his envelope was in there, while the postman was telling him to get lost . . .

Of course, Monk inspired our "He Ain't Right" club . . .

 

[BigT]

I never put my mail in those boxes. I take them inside and either hand them directly to the person behind the counter, or drop them in the outgoing mail slot in the wall near the counter.

 

[TrainChaser]

Around here, they're not that delicate. They just ram the hell out of the box with the sturdiest end of their pickup, grab and go. They do it especially the week before Christmas, to collect all of the gift cards.

 

[hepcat]

^
I'm always impressed by crooks with class and finesse like that.  

 

[Ms Linda]

I always drop off my mail at the post office. But, I'd be more worried with mail being stolen from mailboxes in rural areas that use the red flag to indicate to the mailman that there is mail to be picked up.

 

[John61CT]

We don't lock our house doors even away for days, leave keys in the cars, let our little kids walk or bike miles around, no worries.

 

[BigT]

We don't lock our house doors even away for days, leave keys in the cars, let our little kids walk or bike miles around, no worries.

Where do you live?  Pleasantville??  

I have a friend with a house in Pebble Beach who can do that.  He once accidentally left his front door wide open all week.  When he came back for the weekend, everything was just the way he left it.  Even the deer and raccoons didn't venture inside to have a look around.  

Back in '89 when I lived in Moab, Utah, you could leave the keys in the truck and not lock your doors.  
It was a much simpler time then and a much smaller town.  I don't think I'd want to try it now, though.

 

[John61CT]

Crime rates are now actually much lower now than decades ago in 98% of the country.

People are just paranoid from being too wired into fear-mongering media 24x7.

IMO