Think twice before dropping a check into the blue U.S. Postal Service collection box on your street corner.
Thieves have gotten their hands on the keys that open the signature blue mailboxes across the city, breaking into them, stealing checks, and costing victims thousands of dollars.
“They wait for these people to drop their mail in the boxes, then they go with a key and empty it bone dry,” said Nick Casselli, president of the American Postal Workers Union Local 89.
Earlier this year, The Inquirer reported about thieves compromising the collection boxes across West Philadelphia. But the mail theft and subsequent check fraud has expanded across the city and into the suburbs, officials say, and is so pervasive that the Postal Service is in the process of replacing the locks on every collection box in Philadelphia.