Dealer of the Week: Sammamish Ace Hardware
Local Sammamish Ace among the very first Mail Boss dealers
Epoch Design, manufacturer of the Mail Boss locking security mailbox, is based in Redmond, Washington and President David Bolles is a resident of Sammamish. When Bolles invented and began manufacturing the Mail Boss, he first went to his local hardware store, Sammamish Ace, to pitch the new high security locking mailbox to Tim Koch.
Tim Koch, owner of Ace Hardware in Sammamish, agreed to carry the Mail Boss, recognizing the prevalence of mail theft and identity theft in the area. In an interview with the Sammamish Review, Koch said that the Mail Boss and other similar locking mailboxes fulfill a need in Sammamish for guarding against mail theft.
“In the last couple of years, with all the news and the hype, we have a fair amount of mail theft here on the Sammamish plateau,” explained Koch, who installed a Mail Boss at his residence a year ago. Since August of 2006, his store has sold over two hundred of the Mail Boss locking mailboxes to local customers.
It is no secret that mail thieves prey upon Sammamish residents. The Sammamish police department filed a case March 19, 2008 with the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office alleging a local man had committed more than 150 acts of identity theft. In that case, the suspect scoured unprotected mailboxes for checks he could later cash in nearby banks.
Part of the problem with mail theft in Sammamish is that its sprawling suburban neighborhoods, with expansive front yards, trees and long driveways removes a layer of security. Anneke Broeder, a mail clerk at the Issaquah Post Office, explained “Rural areas are more susceptible to mail theft as opposed to Klahanie or downtown. Most of the time, it’s the boxes that are not locked.”
However, recently there have been increasing reports of residents with “secure” locking mailboxes having their mail stolen. (See this story, for example.) Nowadays, customers are looking for quality products that meet their security needs, and in a locking mailbox that means it must be able to withstand the prying hands of a would-be identity thief.
For Tim Koch, the Mail Boss passes muster. “They’re theft proof pretty much,” Sammamish Ace Hardware owner said. “If you took a stick of dynamite to the thing, you could probably get inside.”
Sammamish Ace Hardware is located at:
- 490 228th Ave NE
- Sammamish, WA 98074
- (425) 868-2203