Thieves target mailboxes in rash of check thefts

The Springfield Police Department recently apprehended a group of people who had been stealing outgoing bill payments from residential mailboxes and changing the names on the checks to their own, according to Public Information Officer Grant Story. While that case is taken care of, Story says mailbox theft is still seen locally on a regular basis.

In the last couple of weeks, Great Southern Bank has dealt with two customers who had checks stolen from their mailboxes. Bank of America has had similar cases, as recently as late December.

At Bank of America, Vice President Terri Choate said the technique she’s seen has involved “washing” a name off of a check with an ink-removing chemical and writing in a new name.

“Luckily the tellers at our Kearney Street bank were sharp enough to realize it looked a little funny,” she said.

That’s not the only check-theft technique, however.

Officer Story says vandals can steal a check from a mailbox, make a photocopy and return the check to the box before anyone has realized it’s missing. Then, the thief can purchase check stock at a number of local stores and print checks with the stolen check’s routing number.

“When that check is given to a merchant, it goes through a scanner … (that) doesn’t verify if the name of the check matches the name on the account,” Story said. “Before that person even knows it, (the thieves) could have written checks all over town.”

Protection methods

To protect against check theft, Story and area banks are telling their customers to avoid leaving outgoing bill payments in unlocked mailboxes. Instead, they suggest taking them to the U.S. Postal Service directly, paying bills online or having payments taken directly from an account.

“We’re telling customers if you want to have your bill payment directly debited from your account, anything electronically is safer than if you’re physically trying to put something in a mailbox,” Great Southern Bank spokeswoman Kelly Polonus said.

Story said people, such as the elderly, who would rather not leave their homes to mail bill payments could have a neighbor drop off their mail for them or hand mail directly to a mail carrier.

While consumers can take steps to protect themselves, Polonus and Choate say banks are working to prevent account fraud on their end, too.

“We teach (our tellers) on different kinds of fraud techniques that are out there,” Polonus said. “We have their alert up for things like that.”

If an account is breached, Choate said, it’s wise to discontinue the account and start with a fresh number. While neither Polonus nor Choate have seen mailbox theft happen at a business, they say it could happen there as easily as at home.