MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – A South Florida man is complaining that thieves continue to steal his mail, and if that’s not bad enough, they’ve racked up quite a bill using his personal information.
It all started with his health savings account.
Ryan Steckbeck says he was waiting for his card in the mail from his insurance company when he received an alert on his account.
“I looked at it and it said that money had been taken out,” Steckbeck said. “I had obviously never received the card so I went through and saw where it was.”
He saw charge after charge, so he called the company and called police.
A few weeks later, he got another alert. This time it was suspicious activity on a credit card he was waiting for.
“I opened it up and looked at the account and I hadn’t received the card,” Steckbeck explained. “The most expensive one was a Quick Stop in Fort Lauderdale. There was also a Speedway.”
The situation led him to the mailbox outside his home in northeast Miami-Dade County, just off North Miami Avenue.
Local 10 News heard from several neighbors who say mail theft has been a problem.
It’s a crime trend we’ve been following very closely on Local 10 News.
Not only are crooks going mailbox to mailbox, but even postal carriers themselves have been targeted for their mail keys.
“It’s pretty frustrating knowing that someone is going through my mail,” Steckbeck said. “One feels a little bit helpless when these sort of things happen because there’s not a lot of recourse a lot of times.”
Some neighbors told Local 10 News’ Andrew Perez that mail theft and identity theft have been an ongoing problem in the neighborhood and it’s gotten to the point that some of them actually decided to add locks to their mailboxes.
Steckbeck said he actually thinks he’s lucky that he caught this when he did, to stop the charges from really racking up with time.
Another reminder, say inspectors, is to take precautions and track your mail, and not to leave it in the mailbox overnight.
Steckbeck also signed up for credit protection and a monitoring system after these incidents.