Dropping Holiday Gifts in USPS Mailbox? USPS Says Be Careful

According to a report by Lance Bixler for the Vigour Times, if you're dropping holiday gifts like cash or checks in a public mailbox, you should follow some tips to keep your gifts safe from mail thieves.

Get our free mobile app

According to the report, the holiday season is high time for mail thieves to break into the United States Postal Service collection mailboxes, looking for cash, checks or anything else of value. So USPS is advising anybody sending gifts like that to deposit it in the mailbox before the final pick up time for the same day of deposit so thieves don't have the opportunity to root through the mailboxes looking for your gift.

Unfortunately, not everybody has the opportunity to deliver their gifts in person. Especially over the last two years during the Covid-19 pandemic. But nobody should have to deal with sending their family or friends a gift in the mail and later finding out that it never arrived, and is instead sitting in a stranger's pocket.

On top of that, the United States Attorney's Office Southern District of New York announced in late September that multiple U.S. Postal Service Employees among others were arrested for stealing credit cards from the mail and using people's personal information found along with the mail to do it.

In this case, USPS is more concerned about bad actors who aren't employees breaking into mailboxes this holiday season to swipe some quick cash intended for people's families and friends. So to keep your gifts safe, deposit them right before they get picked up for the day or better yet, go to the post office in person if you're able to and skip the mailboxes entirely.