CARSON, Calif. — Los Angeles leads the nation in mail theft cases, with nearly 60,000 complaints filed, according to the latest available data from 2022.
Many living in a gated community in Carson have filed complaints in the past few years.
One resident, who chose not to disclose their name due to concern over personal information, said someone stole their mail over five times.
They said they moved into a gated community for additional safety, but just a couple of years after moving in, someone stole their mail for the first time in 2017.
Since then, the issue has continued.
The residents said they usually notice the most activity around March and April. They said they have lost checks and W2s among other important documents.
To try to stop it, they installed a locked mailbox, which they said had to be replaced five times. They said last year was the worst year yet.
"It escalated to where they were here practically every week," they said.
They also put [in] a surveillance system, hired an information monitoring service, and most recently, this year, stopped receiving mail at their home after being tired of replacing the lock on the mailbox.
"I have to check my credit reports. I've had to freeze my accounts, and I monitor it all the time. You know, you don't want to be paranoid, but at the same time, you want to be able to say, I did what I could do," the resident said.
Mail theft is a federal crime punishable by prison, and it has been rising across the nation in the past couple of years.
"In 2001, San Francisco was leading the country in mail theft," said United States Postal Inspector Chris Siouris. "A lot of that criminality has now filtered down here to Southern California. So I would say in the last probably nine or ten years, there's been an uptick where Los Angeles has taken that that lead."
He said one of the factors for the uptick is socioeconomic issues, adding that thieves are usually looking for personal information.
"They're looking for Social Security numbers. They're looking for bank records. They are looking for credit card applications. Oftentimes, they'll get a hold of the credit card apps and they will open a credit card in the intended victim's name and they will divert the mail and have it rerouted to another location where they can take us through the mail as it comes in or the credit cards as it comes in. Then they go out and they use the credit cards all over town and rack up exorbitant amounts of bills," Siouris said.
He said there are some tips people can follow to prevent being victims of mail theft.
"Not mailing anything out from your home mailbox or a blue collection box. My best advice is to, especially if you're mailing out bills, take them to your local post office, put them in the slot in the wall where it goes into the workroom floor. Don't leave any incoming mail at your home in the mailbox overnight," Siouris said.
He also mentioned that if someone is using a blue collection box, place it very close to collection time, usually about 5 p.m.
Those blue collection boxes are also part of a national effort to combat mail theft.
"We have deployed 15,000 enhanced security blue collection boxes across the United States. We've also implemented another 28,000 additional boxes with electronic locks on them, which are very difficult, if not impossible, to defeat," Siouris said.
Still, the neighbors in the Carson community said they hope to see officials ramp up efforts around residential theft, as they share that their cases still need to be resolved.
