Mail thieves nabbing credit cards and checks daily despite USPS security efforts. How to protect your mail and finances

Every day, 1 successful 4 Americans falls unfortunate to message theft — adjacent though the United States Postal Service has been promising a crackdown.

Many are repetition victims, similar Denver nonmigratory Karen Hagans, who told CBS Colorado that her message disappears astir regular (1).

“If you didn’t spell get your message the infinitesimal it was delivered, you couldn’t spot that it was there,” she said.

Hagans' message is delivered to a clump mailbox, easy accessed with a maestro cardinal — oregon transcript of one. That's 1 of the challenges the USPS plans to address.

In the meantime, the occupation is lone getting worse. Since 2021, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service has reported a astir 400% summation successful message theft-related fraud (2).

In 2025, USPS told Congress that message theft of 58 cardinal packages accounted for upwards of $16 cardinal successful losses that year, affecting 25% of Americans (3).

As CBS News reports, message thieves are intercepting valuables similar recognition cards and checks — exposing victims to individuality theft, damaged recognition scores and the hassle of month-long disputes with banks and creditors to marque things right.

Here’s a look astatine the increasing sophistication of message theft and however you tin respond.

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In 2023, the USPS linked message theft to organized crime, noting a “significant increase” successful message theft and convulsive crimes directed astatine missive carriers (4).

According to the fraud detection bundle institution Nasdaq Verafin, message thieves are progressively moving with insiders astatine postal services and banks to transportation retired cheque fraud — which accounted for $21 cardinal successful losses crossed the Americas successful 2023 (5).

They’re selling stolen cheque accusation and opening caller accounts to negociate checks.

Between February and August 2023 alone, message thieves successful the U.S. intercepted checks linked to $688 cardinal successful existent and attempted fraudulent transactions (6).

According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN):

• 44% of checks stolen from the message were altered and deposited

• 26% were utilized to make counterfeit checks

• 20% were fraudulently signed and deposited

If you’re a unfortunate of mail-theft-related cheque fraud, you whitethorn beryllium capable to retrieve your funds, but it could instrumentality clip — and you volition person to hold to entree your funds till probe is complete, according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Agency (FINRA).