Locking Mailboxes – The “Key” to Preventing Identity Theft

Need a good reason to change out your old antique postal receptacle?  How about if I told you that steel locking mailboxes would save your life.  Would that be reason enough?

copper locking mailboxes

Imagine what it would be like to apply for a credit card expecting no problems and no hassles because of your good credit history.  Then to your amazement you get declined for a poor credit rating.  The decision, making no sense, causes you to check into your credit scores finding out that someone has been using your name…your identity and running up huge amounts of debt and not paying it off?

This story actually happened to a good friend of mine.  someone had stole her identity and it was a major pain AND major hassle to try and get everything sorted out.  It took a lot of time and effort on her part and a resolution didn’t happen overnight.  In fact, even though the event occurred awhile back, on occasion the effects of it come haunting her like a ghost in the night.

Now, she’ll be one of the first to say she doesn’t know how the thieves got her information.  But after talking with the police after reporting the event, she’ll also tell you that it most likely happened when the mail got stolen from her mailbox.

See she lived on a street where each home had individual receptacles.  And her box was one of the older models.  Yep, you simply open the door to put the mail in and opened the door to take the mail out.  It wasn’t one of the newer locking mailboxes she had been contemplating getting.  As a result, someone she didn’t know opened that door and helped themselves to her mail.  Mail that had names, addresses, birth dates and various other information that helped that person to get all the personal information he needed on my friend in order to steal her identity.

As unreal as it may seem, truly that is all that is necessary for someone to commit fraud by way of identity theft.  And this is why it’s so important to protect yourself by protecting your mail with a locking mailbox.

What happens with  locking mailboxes is that the mailman can easily place the mail in the top of the box and only the person with the key can open it to get the mail out.  And because the boxes are so secure, you don’t have to worry about leaving your mail in the box for any extended period of time.  It won’t be going anywhere until you get it.

Based on my friend’s story and knowing the “hell” she went through from having her identity stolen, can I make a suggestion?  Take a look at your mailbox.  If it’s not secure by way of a locking mechanism where only you or someone you gave a key to has access, please get it changed out.  I can guarantee, as will my friend, that for piece of mind, locking mailboxes are definitely worth it.

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