Identity Theft and Mail: Scammers Lurking!

Guest post by Garen Arnold of Report Online Scams

It is so relevant that identity theft and mail fraud go hand in hand. What do I mean? Well typically a lot of fraud that has to do with identity theft roots back to people stealing your mail. I am sure that everyone knows that stealing another person’s mail is HIGHLY illegal. In fact, it is a federal crime.

I want to make it perfectly clear that taking someone’s belongings out of a safety depository box, opening someone’s mail, and actually destroying someone’s mail is a serious offense. If you are found guilty of this you can be imprisoned for 5 years per count of mail theft.

However, in this article I did want to talk about a number of scams that have been happening through the mail.

Misrepresentation and Non-delivery fraud

This is a common type of mail fraud. This is becoming very popular, because you can easily order items online, using a digital shopping cart. However, not everyone online is an “honest Abe.”

The first form of mail fraud is Non-Delivery. This is pretty self explanatory, but someone will purchase merchandise online and never receive it. Eventually these sites will be shut down and exposed. What is sad is they generally start up a new site and continue to rip people off under various accounts.

Next, this is a type of fraud that con-artists are setting up to rip people off. I actually did a story where a “business” sold all kinds of merchandise. However, they sent everyone wrong packing lists, and very cheap goods in order to make it look like they shipped the package to the wrong address. This is a down right dirty tactic. You know how I found that out? I purchased $8,000 worth of goods, and everyone received the same fake packing list.

Another form of a misrepresentation mail fraud is when someone receives a package that they did not order. However, the catch is they will then be pressured to sign for the item, because the carrier will insist that they sign for it so that they can take it. Where this mail fraud gets dirty is the fake business that sent the package will send them bills demanding that they pay for their product. Once you pay for the item to avoid being harassed, you have given your personal information to a crook who can do all kind of horrible things with your information. There are some incredibly dirty tactics that con-artists use to sell your personal information on the black market.

Identity theft is a huge problem and I have talked to numerous people that have been victimized by this horrible crime. I would highly recommend that everyone reads my LifeLock review which helps you and your family stay safe. One of the ways in which LifeLock protects your identity is that they remove your name from all the popular marketing firms that send you credit card offers, as well as various documents that have your personal information on them.