This is why people do not care to report or try to help

J

Jeni

Senior Member
I was walking last Friday........ saw a strange person by side of trail about 1/2 mile down the trail.
Many people out on trail biking and jogging etc so i thought nothing of it when i came upon the place he was lurking close to a run off ditch i see 20 - 30 pieces of mail...... from a few houses on a street a few blocks away
he must have been going through tossing the junk mail even bills in the ditch.... when i returned home called the police tip line AND alerted postal service through their online portal both giving my name and phone.... thinking they may have more questions etc....... NOPE .....no one cares

someone told me I should PICK up the stolen mail and then go deliver it to those houses as the answer .......... wow
 

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I'm not surprised by their response. There is all this crap about federal offence blah, blah but in the end they don't care. I hope those people get locking mail boxes. At their own expense of coarse. :mad:
 

Remy said:
I'm not surprised by their response. There is all this crap about federal offence blah, blah but in the end they don't care. I hope those people get locking mail boxes. At their own expense of coarse. :mad:
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exactly if NO one wants to enforce a law perhaps it is time to just remove that law...........
tired of this idea of pick and chose what they enforce ...UNLESS it happens to the right person...lol
 
Maybe instead of just calling, I would have taken pictures of the disposed mail ... and attach to correspondence to those sources.
Jeni said:
I was walking last Friday........ saw a strange person by side of trail about 1/2 mile down the trail.
Many people out on trail biking and jogging etc so i thought nothing of it when i came upon the place he was lurking close to a run off ditch i see 20 - 30 pieces of mail...... from a few houses on a street a few blocks away
he must have been going through tossing the junk mail even bills in the ditch.... when i returned home called the police tip line AND alerted postal service through their online portal both giving my name and phone.... thinking they may have more questions etc....... NOPE .....no one cares

someone told me I should PICK up the stolen mail and then go deliver it to those houses as the answer .......... wow
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And also, local TV news affiliates like to send reporters out on investigative issues at times, if they find it 'newsworthy'
 
@Murrmurr .... exactly it is the beginning of bigger crimes ... yet NO one seems to care
i can ID.... the guy but if no one cares i feel for the people who lost mail
it has been a few days I have not been back to see if it is ruined as we had rain etc .....
@Bonnie sent picture on the postal service site but i had called the police was hoping if they needed i would show them the area.....
had a couple of pieces of mail show up there before .... but the volume of this was much higher
 
Bonnie said:
Maybe instead of just calling, I would have taken pictures of the disposed mail ... and attach to correspondence to those sources.



And also, local TV news affiliates like to send reporters out on investigative issues at times, if they find it 'newsworthy'
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Jeni said:
@Murrmurr .... exactly it is the beginning of bigger crimes ... yet NO one seems to care
i can ID.... the guy but if no one cares i feel for the people who lost mail
it has been a few days I have not been back to see if it is ruined as we had rain etc .....
@Bonnie sent picture on the postal service site but i had called the police was hoping if they needed i would show them the area.....
had a couple of pieces of mail show up there before .... but the volume of this was much higher
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Police can't do anything with just the stolen mail, they need the thief's picture. Even then, all they can do is look for him/her. Mail thieves are sometimes homeless, very rarely live near the mailboxes they steal from and rarely steal from the same neighborhood more than once, so a search gets the police nowhere unless they just happen to get lucky.
 
Same thing happens here, rural OK. Multiple witnesses to the theft and identity of the the person doing it. He walks down our road, takes the mail from the boxes, opens it on his walk back up the road to his place tossing things that are not useful to him on the side of the road. Sheriff's dept. has done nothing. Neighbor got so fed up with it one day he walked the road picking it all up and redistributing it.
 
Murrmurr said:
Police can't do anything with just the stolen mail, they need the thief's picture. Even then, all they can do is look for him/her. Mail thieves are sometimes homeless, very rarely live near the mailboxes they steal from and rarely steal from the same neighborhood more than once, so a search gets the police nowhere unless they just happen to get lucky.
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told them i can give description and i believe he "lives" in a nearby encampment ..... they most likely want nothing to do with cleaning that up
 
Murrmurr said:
Police can't do anything with just the stolen mail, they need the thief's picture. Even then, all they can do is look for him/her. Mail thieves are sometimes homeless, very rarely live near the mailboxes they steal from and rarely steal from the same neighborhood more than once, so a search gets the police nowhere unless they just happen to get lucky.
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funny that even with security like ring cameras they still rarely arrest these folks...
i have seen mail trucks at apartment complexes etc with huge locked mailboxes the door of truck wide open as they have their back turned working on all the little slots if i was a thief could have taken a whole crate of mail off the truck.......
simply put safety and security of mail ....... is a joke based on the "honor" system and there is NO honor among thieves.
 
It's crazy. People are crazy. A locked mailbox is a good idea, provided the thief can't remove the mailbox. My mailbox is by the roadside, attached to a post that's cemented into the ground. I suppose someone could just pull up to it, like the mailman does to deliver the mail, simply open the box and abscond with it. I certainly don't watch the mailbox 24/7, so I wouldn't know unless something was missing that I was expecting. Stealing mail is now common, especially during tax refund time.

As far as finding neighborhood mail in a ditch, I don't think I could just leave it there. I'd pick it up and drive it to the post office and let them deal with it.

Bella ✌️
 
These posts about stolen mail/mailboxes reminds me of a problem that I had to deal with a number of years ago. We lived out in the country and had our mailbox on a post out on the main gravel road. There was a very deep grader ditch along the road. I had a problem that someone started knocking down my mail box with their vehicle every couple of weeks.

I had a pretty good idea it was a lowlife neighbor a couple houses down the road as we had a run in not too long before this started happening. I was getting real tired of digging up the broken mail box post, resetting a new post and buying a new mail box. The last time I decided if it happened again I would pour a large concrete post that would do some major damage if they hit it with their vehicle again. As it was they didn't mind if they got some minor damage to their junky 4 wheel drive mowing off a wooden 4x4 mail box post.

Not too long after replacing the third mail box/post I was awoken one night by some noise out by the road. There was also flashing yellow lights shining through the front windows. I looked out and saw a large tow truck stopped in front of my house. There was my lowlife neighbor's 4 wheel drive on it's side in the bottom of the large/deep grader ditch out by my mailbox.

I knew immediately what had happened. The neighbor had swerved over to mow down my mailbox yet again, but unfortunately for him, he swerved a little too far over, caught the soft shoulder, lost control and crashed into the grader ditch. He was hoping to get his vehicle pulled out of the ditch and was hoping I would be none the wiser about how my mailbox got run over once again.

I immediately called the Sheriff and reported the wreck even before I went out to investigate. The neighbor was drunk as a skunk and tried to act like my best buddy. I told him I knew exactly what had happened. Of course, he denied it but I knew better.

When Sheriff's deputy showed up, much to my neighbor's surprise, he was questioned and later hauled off for DUI. I never had a problem with that neighbor after that. Of course, I never got reimbursed for all the damages but at least the neighbor never bothered me again. The old sayings about Karma came to mind.
 
Tom 52 - Love it! Situation is much the same here, lowlife constantly causing all neighbors problems. Wish we had a way to catch him. I put up security cameras and at least they stay away from my house now, no more banging on house in middle of night, but they chop on trees out around the perimeter where the cameras don't reach. We are talking large mature pines on wooded property that could do damage when they fell, so I have to have them taken down if they could hit power lines or houses. Frustrating. Am afraid if I put trail cams out around they would just be stolen and that seems futile.
 
Murrmurr said:
Mail thieves are identity thieves....


There are literally hundreds of mail thieves caught on door cams on YouTube. Police aren't doing much about it.
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thankfully we have letterboxes in our front doors..

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hollydolly said:
thankfully we have letterboxes in our front doors..

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Yes, I often wonder why Americans don't have our system...and whether it was possible to steal their mail. Now I know. Mind you, their paper boys/girls just throw their papers on the lawn. Ours are actually pushed through the letter box.
 
Lavinia said:
Yes, I often wonder why Americans don't have our system...and whether it was possible to steal their mail. Now I know. Mind you, their paper boys/girls just throw their papers on the lawn. Ours are actually pushed through the letter box.
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Do the paper deliverers actually do that ?.. I remember seeing them throwing papers from their bikes and trying to hit the porches , but that was in the 60's.. not sure if they do that now.. but you;re right, it's a puzzle why letterboxes haven't replaced mailboxes, given the high theft level.....
 
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Lavinia said:
Yes, I often wonder why Americans don't have our system...and whether it was possible to steal their mail. Now I know. Mind you, their paper boys/girls just throw their papers on the lawn. Ours are actually pushed through the letter box.
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Over here nothing can be deposited in a mail slot except postage paid material, no home delivered newspapers.
 
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