Mail boxes continue to be an easy target of opportunity for thieves.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The suspects are looking for mail that contains items they can turn around quickly; such as gift cards and\/or cash, according to a King County Sheriff’s Office media release. If they find checks they\u2019re washing them, making them out to themselves and changing the amounts.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
While the thefts happen at all hours of the day, most occur during two different time periods, noon to 2 p.m. and midnight to 2 a.m. The suspects target traditional mailboxes, yet they aren\u2019t deterred by locking ones either.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
They will pry open locked boxes and have even gone so far as to use a torch on the hinges on a bank of mailboxes like those found in many housing developments.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The Sheriff’s Office offers several tips to protect yourself from these thefts:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Make it a habit to collect your mail every day. Don\u2019t ever leave your mail in the box overnight. Also, consider buying a locking mailbox.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re going on vacation either arrange for a neighbor to collect your mail or ask the post office to hold your mail until you return. When sending mail, don\u2019t place it out for your mail carrier; drop it off at the post office. Remember, that red flag is a notice to everyone that there is mail in the box.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Most importantly, residents know best what is suspicious activity in their neighborhood. They are urged to call police if they see someone spending time at or near mailboxes or following a mail carrier. Several arrests of mail thieves have happened because people called about something they saw that just didn\u2019t seem right.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mail boxes continue to be an easy target of opportunity for thieves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":1235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-1234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1234"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=1234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}