A note left on a mailbox on 106th Street and West End Avenue. (Instructions are repeated in larger letters in the image below).
Sheesh, you can’t even trust a mailbox anymore!
The 24th precinct has been pasting signs to the outside of mailboxes telling people to mail their checks and other important documents at the post office itself, or hand them directly to a mail carrier.
That’s because local mailboxes have been hit by “mail fishers.” The thieves use a flattened milk carton, filled with a layer of cement, covered in glue, and hung on a string, to fish for mail left in the boxes, police said at a local meeting last year. In one incident in late 2015, a $31,755 commercial rent check was stolen.
The precinct also tells people to use other methods to transfer money, if possible. Of course, some people are understandably concerned about sending money via the Internet at a time when so many institutions have been hacked.
If people must use street mailboxes, they say, drop the check as close to pickup time as possible. And use pigmented ink that can’t be erased.
Photo by Ernie Fritz, who notes that this very same mailbox played a pivotal role in the Will Smith movie ‘Collateral Beauty’. On the Upper West Side, even the mailboxes are famous!
We were victims of this as were two other residents of our building. We filed a report at the precinct. NYPD thinks it may be an inside job at the post office in addition to fishing.
Also – looks like a incomplete sentence in the post: “In one incident in late 2015, $31,755 commercial rent check”
Thanks, fixed.
I reported a mail box hanging open on 76 and Amsterdam. I tried to call the post office but it was impossible luckily I saw a postal employee and was able to tell him. It looked like the box had been broken open.
A manager at the Chase Bank at Columbus and 97th told us he sees stuff like this often. People come in the bank with “washed” checks that they pulled out of a mailbox. With all the opportunities for online fraud, this seems almost quaint.
Another option is to write this on the back of all mailed checks: “For deposit only without recourse.” The first part is self-explanatory. The second part is a little known banking rule that says that if any institution deposits the check into any account except one owned by the recipient whose name is on the front, the bank is liable, not the person who wrote the check.
As for the comment about an inside USPS job? I believe that it is highly likely. Mum’s the word on my evidence, though.
Paula, does that actually work? Where did you get your info from?
https://myfinancialwingman.com/2011/05/banking-basics-101-check-endorsements/
Sadly, we mailed some checks at our local PO at 95th and Columbus and these were fraudulently cashed as well. So where does one post checks? Ergo the emergence of the digital payment mode.
Go in the post office and put them in the slot there.
A couple of years ago from the box at 104th and WEA, I mailed a check made out to Con Edison that they never received. Turns out it was changed to Macon Edison and it was cashed. This alteration was done by a mailbox theft or postal service thief. In order to get a refund from my bank I had to file a report with the NYPD which took a lot of convincing on my part for them to participate – they could not have cared less. Moral of the story – do not merely use the moniker Con Edison on your checks and fill the entire Pay To space. Lesson learned.
?What is “pigmented ink? Isn’t all ink pigmented? Does anyone know?
you can get erasable ink pens from any staples store in nyc five in a pack ask a clerk they will get it for you I got mine on w 20st and 6th ave nyc
Non-erasable
Post-office theft is, sadly, a problem. A friend’s checks were removed from envelopes deposited directly at the W. 104th PO, washed, and new payee entered. He filed a police report, as one should.
Or ask your bank to use my software that picks out all forms of fraudulent checks!
a check i mailed around december holidays never got to the recipient and was never cashed…what did happen is that thieves had checks printed with all my account details and then they deposited them via atms (with stolen atm cards, i presume) and withdrew the funds. it took about 50 transactions and a large sum of money for my bank to question the transactions which occurred in florida and texas. my account was closed, i filed an affidavit immediately. it took months and months to get all the funds back. i was fortunate to have other funds to continue with my life, but the whole time this was going on i was thinking about the victims for whom the stolen funds represented their only assets to pay for rent, food, transportation. my theory is that the theft was by a seasonal post office employee, but could have been stolen from street collection box, too. i had to follow up with bank constantly to recover my money and i had heard from friends whose bank did not cover them 100%…outrageous!!!
usps should have a contest with big prize to create a tamper proof mail box!
i stopped using these mail boxes a long time ago, because even regular mail gets fished out and then lost.
🙁 sad sign of the times.
What about the mail chutes in some of the older buildings? That seems safe to me as only the USPS carrier can open the box at the bottom of the chute. How safe are these chutes?
The only place I’ll deposit US mail is in the box in the lobby of my building.
I won’t use the chute from an upper floor because who knows what’s in there, between the upper floor and the lobby.
So far, so good.
So what are people supposed to do….you can’t use a mailbox and you can’t trust the post office. What are the options?
Haven’t paid any bill via mail in years. Either use my bank’s online bill pay or go to whatever credit card, utility, etc… website and pay.
Why are people in this day and age still mailing paper checks to pay bills is a larger question IMHO.
Last week I reported a mailbox covered inside with sticky goop. I discovered it when my letter did not godown. I pulled it out along with a neighbor’s stuck rent check. I mailed them both at the PO and reported it to the USPS Inspector General. Within a week we had a new mailbox. I also made a home made sign warning people about the sticky goop inside. This was at 105th and Manhattan Avenue.
Is there any recourse for people for whom USPS fails to leave the required number of notifications about registered, certified or return-receipt mail? My son lost an apartment because of this.
How did not getting a notice cause your son to “lose” an apartment? Or maybe I shouldn’t ask?
Anyway try:
https://www.usps.com/manage/myusps.htm
https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action
As for recourse to notices not being left, you’d have to speak to the postmaster for your local office.
USPS uses many new or temporary carriers who leave much to be desired in terms of properly carrying out their duties.
Besides getting mail at 4PM, 5PM or one day 7PM our building has had things put in incorrect boxes, failure to leave notices, and other issues.
If the issue is with your regular carrier, then good luck. They are union and cannot be touched. It takes something major like theft of mail or such to get any action out of the Post Office. For years we had a very nasty carrier and complaints to postmaster/management did nothing. Pretty much were told just what have said; he was union with sonority so that was that.
/it’s about time they warned people. My mail and many of my neighbors’ mail was fished last year — from the box in front of the Park West collection station. They caught the culprits the second time after a stakeout.
I wondered why they never put anything on the mailboxes to warn people.
I live in exile in Riverdale now and ALL our mailboxes have been removed because of this problem. Safer ones are supposed to be installed but it’s been months and months.
I wonder if this is why the mailbox on the corner of West End and 94th never opens more than an inch.
Pay Con Edison by phone – no fee, takes 2 minutes.
I live in Inwood, and we’ve had mail-fishing problems for almost two years now. We’ve read that the USPS has plans to replace some boxes with ones that have a narrow slot instead of a pull-down opening.
Mailed a rent check in the mailbox OUTSIDE the PO on 104th bet Bway & Amst about a year and a half ago…been mailing things there literally for decades during hours when PO was closed. Only found out there was a problem when we rec’d letter from landlord saying we were in arrears. Asked around in our bldg & learned that we were not the only tenants to receive this notice at this time from landlord. Immediately after stopping payment on chk#1 ($$$, but considered ourselves lucky after hearing others’ stories of loss) & paying new chk in person to landlord office (who looked at us as if we had 3 heads when we explained) we went inside that PO (renowned for being sometimes difficult, to put it diplomatically) where I was told that the box outside (at this PO anyway) has been “outsourced ” & that “they”, as in the inside-the-PO people, presumably, have zero knowledge/responsibility for anything to do with that box since “someone else” now picks up mail from the box. (?) They said “just mail it inside to be sure”. Who would have known that there are mailboxes vs mailboxes?!
Ironically, we had used that box ever since we’d had a similar experience (electric bill) with the mailbox on the SW corner of 104th & Bway, now long gone, maybe after 9/11, which we had begun to use only when the mail chute in our building was vandalized & no one from anywhere had any interest in fixing it except with duct tape. This included almost begging building staff & every PO member we could find. Not. Kidding.) Lobby box seems ok – so far- bc the PO worker who delivers mail to the bldg always empties it when done for the day, but we just chalk the entire depressing experience up to the times, lazy criminals, & I guess the general unfortunate state of the PO in general.
PS- the one time I wanted to make my own sign to place on that particular mailbox right outside of the PO I was told it was considered a crime to do so…defacing federal property, etc…don’t even get me started. Thank you WSR for explaining where these new signs came from. It’s about time honest people are getting warned!