Who read my private mail?
Protecting your mail is an important component of protecting yourself from identity theft. Luckily, today there are many steps you can take to protect your mail from those who would steal your mail in an effort to steal your identity. This article describes how having a letter sent directly to my house compromised my privacy. Read on to find out what happened, and what I do now to protect my privacy.
Who read my private mail?
I used to get all my mail sent to my home mailbox. Most people still do this. Once I became more aware of the need for privacy, I switched to a PO Box near my house. One event triggered this move to increase my privacy.
My accountant completed my tax return, and I had the tax department send the acknowledgement back to the accountant, who forwarded it to me. The statement included my taxable income for the year. In Australia, due to our culture someone’s financial matters are their most closely guarded secret. We don’t talk about our incomes, what we own, or how much our house is worth.
Unfortunately the letter was addressed to the wrong street number by mistake, so it ended up at the house of someone down the street. It still had my name on it, but the wrong number. You would have thought that since the person at the house that it was sent to knew my name, that they would forward it to me unopened. Although they had an excuse that it was opened by mistake when they returned the letter, evidently curiosity got the better of them. So they saw my bottom line.
Sometime later, I was talking to my neighbor, who lives on my street. He brought up my income and how high he thought it was. I had never mentioned it to him, so the person who opened the letter (his neighbor) must have told him.
You can see the problem that was caused. This could have been prevented if I had the mail sent to a post office box. My private information would have stayed private.
That was years ago, and the street busybody has now moved away and I use a post office box. I am working on getting all my mail sent there, but for now I’ve focused on the most critical items to identity theft:
- Bank statements
- Utility bills
- Investment statements
- Personal letters
- Items ordered, such as tickets or electronics
The post office box is near my house and I can access it at any time. If a larger item is delivered, then they put a card in the mailbox and hold it until I can pick it up. I avoid junk mail that is addressed to me because the fewer people who know my address.
I am now more careful about giving out my home mail address. I remember putting my name and address on a petition once and for years received junk mail from charities. The petition had sold the mailing list to other companies. Nevertheless, your contact details can be extracted from public information. When I get junk mail now, I simply cross out my name and write RTS (‘return to sender’) across the front. Then I put it back in a public mailbox and it is returned. I have found that this reduces my unwanted junk substantially.
One of the most dangerous types of unsolicited mail are the offers for credit cards that some banks send out. They choose you by finding out the average income in your area, then extract the address information from public sources. The risk is that someone will take them out of your home mailbox, receive a credit card in your name and then run up a bill on it. While identity theft laws generally cover this, your bank may still come after you initially for the money.
While you can put a lock on your mailbox, another way is to ask the post office to redirect all mail to your PO box. This does incur a charge, but it ensures that your mail is secure. The best thing is getting all mail sent to your PO box in the first place. You may also have your bank statements and bills transferred to online statements that you receive via email, thus completely doing away with paper statements altogether.
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