If you haven’t signed up for the US Postal Service’s Informed Delivery service, you might want to do so now.
The service lets you see what’s expected to arrive in your mailbox soon. It’s great for knowing that a check or invite you’ve been waiting for is literally in the mail. And f you don’t sign up for it? You’re opening yourself up to someone signing up for the service as you and swiping your important mail before you ever see it.
On November 6th the Secret Service reportedly sent an internal alert to its law enforcement partners warning them of a scam where criminals would sign up for other people’s mailboxes and then steal credit cards from those people’s mailboxes, reports KrebsOnSecurity.
Advertisement
According to the report, seven people in Michigan used the service to apply for fraudulent credit cards and then steal those cards out of their recipient’s mailboxes. The mailbox owners never knew the cards were even applied for, much less stolen. In that case, the defendants were able to run up nearly $400,000 in charges on the stolen cards.
KrebsOnSecurity notes that any adult that lives at your address can sign up for an account, so if you do want to claim your address you should do so for every eligible person. You can also reportedly opt your address out of the service entirely by emailing eSafe@usps.gov, although the publication did not have any luck getting a response from that address.
It also suggested a credit freeze might help prevent fraudulent signups since USPS uses security questions from Equifax in order to verify accounts. That said, several readers of the site claimed they were able to sign up even though they had credit freezes in place, so your mileage may vary.
Advertisement
And as always, this a good reminder to sign up for alerts for when your credit report changes. If you have alerts set up you’ll find out about fraudulent cards and loans sooner rather than later.
via Lifehacker
Sign Your Address Up For USPS Informed Delivery Before Scammers Do