Stealing My Mail
Posted on July 30, 2006 - Filed Under Life
Gotta love living in South Tacoma!
We put three of our Netflix movies in the mailbox this morning for return only to catch a woman trying to steal them this afternoon.
I was sitting on the couch watching TV with Toni when she noticed that someone was walking away from our porch. I looked out the window and see a woman wearing a backpack walking slowly down our front walkway and thought she must be putting flyers on our door.
The woman picked up her bike at the bottom of the walkway and peddled north down our street like she was out for a Sunday ride. Toni jumped up and said “I bet she took our movies!” and sure enough the movies were gone when we checked the mailbox.
This woman was sly, the dogs didn’t even hear her and they were in the living room next to the windows. We jumped in the car and caught up with her a block down the road and confronted her in the parking lot of an apartment building. We told her to return the movies to us and she pulled them out of the front of her pants (ewwww) and said “Sorry”.
Toni was ripping her a new one, asking her why she was stealing things out of a mailbox that did not belong to her, and basically venting at the woman. The woman was entering an apartment and told us she was there to visit a friend, we just assumed she actually lived there because we had seen this woman in the neighborhood before.
We called the Tacoma Police Department and they met us back at our house a few minutes later. We explained the situation and gave them a description of the woman and the address of the apartment she had entered. Five minutes later she is in custody and we are asked to come down to the apartment and identify her. While we are there she is saying “I’m sorry!” over and over again.
The officers gave us a case number and told us that this woman has a “long history” of doing things like this and that we had done the right thing. Huge thanks to the officers and dispatchers in the Tacoma Police Department, they were quick and professional.
Penalty for stealing mail? Up to 5 years in jail and a $250,000 fine.
Update: Looks like she was booked for Petty Theft which is a Misdemeanor and currenty shows as $1,000 Court Mandatory according to public records for Pierce County Jail.
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36 Responses to “Stealing My Mail”
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Sweet! Nice going. I hope you’ll keep hackingnetflix up to date on this, if you find out that she gets jail time or something. Would love to know later on if that happens. Cheers.
Thanks I’ll let you know what happens!
I should also note that the reason we called the police is that we had witnessed her taking things from other homes along our street.
The movies were Saw 2, Sin City and Dark City.
We have just experienced our mail being stolen for the nth time. Finally after having checks written on our account and numerous thefts we installed a brand new mail box that has a lock on it.
Just recently the lock was broken and we experienced another theft.
The person who wrote checks by forging our signature was caught, but I’m not sure what they really did to him.
Now I’m just about to take the matter into my own hands. If the police won’t enforce the law something must be done.
If the penalty for stealing mail is 5 years and 250,000 fine then why is it not being enforced.
Good question. I found out that our thief was charged with petty theft, which was her third crime is the past 2 years.
I was told that it was going to a prelim hearing, and she could plead guilty or not guilty. If she pleads not guilty they would call us… we never got a call. I have no idea what her penalty was.
I am sorry to hear about your mail being taken, it’s a complete hassle when it happens. What have the police told you when you’ve reported it in the past?
How did she pick the lock on your mailbox? I’ve thought about this when we bought our house because the previous owner could’ve duplicated the key to our mailbox. We can’t change the lock since it’s the property of USPS.
Hi Alice-
We dont have a lock on the mailbox. It’s just your standard flip-top box attached to the house next to our front door.
This exact thing has been happening to us…we haven’t caught the thief yet…and you want to know the sad thing? We live right in front of the police station. It’s ridiculous…spend $5 a month and you can get them legally.
Wow Angela that stinks!
I think my neighborhood has one of those freaks.
If the package is too large to run off with, they open it right there and take the contents. My home has a lot of blind spots and it is hard to catch who it is.
There was this package I was supposed to get no later than the 17th of April,well we never got it so they sent another and it’s been almost two weeks now but, I’m worried I won’t get it.
I also got another separate package just today that was empty. so get this, I ran after the mailman, as he got back into his truck, after finishing my street, just to ask if he’d delivered it in this condition. He said that it was sealed when he delivered it. Keep in mind this was right after he delivered it to my door. This person would have had to literally follow right behind him on his way down the street. This really bothers me, especially because a couple of neighbors were outside. Who would have the nerve to do a thing like that? Or worst yet get away with it in broad daylight without anyone noticing.
“spend $5 a month and you can get them legally.”
What do you mean, Like some sort of investigation?
So it’s been almost a year since this happened and the top search term that brings traffic to this site is “stealing mail”. Looks like this is a pretty common problem.
I’ve seen the lady that stole our movies in our area a few times since all of this happened (she lives a few blocks away) but she has stayed clear of our house.
Jenny, the “spend $5 a month and you can get them legally.” comment probably means that the person could spend $5 bucks a month to get their own Netflix movies without stealing other peoples.
I’m so glad that you caught her…I’m going through a similar situation, but the people taking my mail are my landlords and their friends. I also have netflicks and I never get my movies or my bills on time, I’ve made complaints to the post office and now I am getting a mail box with lock and key…. I’ll let you know how it turns out….
Hey, I have a mail stealing story. My husband and I recently got married and I joined his bank account. Apparently someone was digging through our mail and found my bank card that came in the mail. Then they dug through again and got the pin number out of it. Then they took $1,600. We went to the police and they act like it wasn’t a big deal!! The bank has a clear picture of this man! Why don’t the police do anything about it? I guess I will just have to get a post office box…
I am having a similar problem. Someone is repeatedly stealing packages off my porch and often ripping them open on my porch to see if there is anything valuable inside. Lately, I have been sending anything that I order to my parents house to prevent it from being stolen. I haven’t been able to catch them yet. I hoping to rig up some kind of video camera through my doors peephole and placing a empty package outside in hopes of catching them.
The neighbours who live upstairs from me are hoarding my mail. Because of them, I never got my credit card statement and was therefore charged all these excess fees. Nothing as bad as stealing goods like movies though (though I did order an elliptical… now I’m feeling quite uneasy about it and will probably keep going out to the front door every half an hour). I think I might invest in a lock and key PO box too. Asshats.
Are you notifying the post office? The Postal Investigation Service should investigate the situation.
Yes I have a similar problem. My husband ex girlfriend before we were married, keeps stealing our mail. She admitts to it too. Still is currently opening our mails, though they are not addressed to her. I’ve called usps, asking if its illegal to open mail not addressed to you. They stated that it is.
I’ve notified the postal investigation so many many times. Now my credit card address is changing. I’m so ticked off. I’ve contacted the police and anyone I can think of. They just said as long as she has not used it. they can’t do anything. I am so pissed off. So much for illegal
I’m suspecting the same thing where i live. We had issues with a neighbor and wouldn’t put it past her to swipe the mail from the box. I too have a netflix account and just this week haven’t rcieved the DVD I ordered. I notifyed them so we’ll see if the replacement gets here.
I think it’s about time the postal service went to delivering mail through the slots of the door..everywhere. No more boxes.
Large packages should be picked up at the PO to avoid theft.
Wonderful what a few jerks can accomplish eh?
Wow – this is a long running thread. Well, I’m going to share that after working in a identify theft prevention company, we now use a p.o. box for everything. When someone picked up my purse in the mall, we had a lot of comfort that the person didn’t even get our home address. (Yes, you can make them put a p.o. box on a driver lic.)
The only items that come to the house say “neighbor” or “resident”. It took a long time. I’d just call the sender every time something came to the house with our name on it, we’re finally free of problems with the mail. Try it. It’s worth it. Of course, we still get junk mail in the p.o. box once in awhile but it’s not as bad.
Why would you chase after someone who just committed a crime,putting your personal health in danger, when all you had to do is go into your Netflix queue and report the DVDs stolen? Sounds like you acted in Netflix’s interest not yours.
It wasn’t about the movies. It was about someone stealing from us.
We live in an area where this sort of thing happens frequently. Nobody does anything about it. This woman had a history of this sort of thing in our neighborhood.
I wanted to send a message and make it clear that this will not be tolerated in our area. I’ve also gone after the kids spraying graffiti on the post boxes on our corner, stopped assaults and other “fun” things. It’s about being responsible for the things that happen around you and trying to make changes for the better.
Sometimes, in order to make a change you have to be the person to put yourself out there to make it happen.
I’m not worried about my personal health being in danger, I can take care of myself. :)
Dave, you really should move.
We live in Sammamish Washington, and my parents had their mail stolen a number of times. Apparently there is a ring of mail thefts in our area, related to meth use: the addicts trade stolen mail to ring-leaders who in turn provide them with drugs.
Anyway, the thieves used their account information to steal hundreds of dollars. So, like John, they decided to get a locking mailbox. They went to the hardware store and could only find flimsy boxes that could be easily picked or pried open. So they decided there was a big need for an affordable high-quality locking mailbox on the market, especially in light of all the mail theft and identity theft going on lately.
Anyway, long story short, they decided to use the resources of their company (epoch design) — which has traditionally made children’s furniture featured in costco — to design and manufacture an affordable high-security locking mailbox to help consumers deter and prevent mail and identity theft. This video on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1CspocNIbE is pretty entertaining actually… shows the Mail Boss being driven over with a Mac truck. Goes to show that vandals wouldn’t have much luck with a baseball bat on this 12-gauge steel postal fortress!
So basically i didnt graduate high school and i still got a bunch of letters full of cash from people congratulating me on graduating im 18 years old and live at home and my parents took them all without even letting me see them i just barely found one is there anything i could do about that?
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South Seattle and lots of stolen mail here. I had some black neigbors who were unemployed and they were stealing from our mail almost daily for several months.
One day I happened to get a Netflix movie and I opened it and put a letter inside with a blank CD. Then I left it in the mailbox. The letter said “SAY HELLO TO THE HIDDEN CAMERA. I KNOW YOUR NAME AND WHERE YOU LIVE. WATCH OUT FOR MY 9MM HOLLOW POINTS NEXT TIME YOU COME OVER AND TRY TO STEAL. YOU HAVE BEEN REPORTED TO THE POLICE.”
Problem solved.
@The Mexican
What does your neighbors’ race have to do with it?
Race has nothing to do with this. Leaving that comment there as an example.
And to prove that race means nothing when it comes to this stuff… the woman that took our movies was white as Wonder Bread.
I have also had 10 netflix movies ‘disappear’ from my mailbox in the past 6 months. Even paradise (Hawai`i) has its crooks! I’m hoping to catch them and kick some @$*.
You think it’s unbelievable that police wouldn’t think it’s a big deal that someone stole $1,600 from your bank card in the mail? Some guy broke into 8 cars down here and destroyed them, including mine, which was totalled. He also tried to steal a Culligan van. The police caught him…and let him off because it was his first offense, and they like to give second chances. The next week he was back in our neighborhood and broke into our neighborhood’s clubhouse, and stole the flat screen.
My future ex-husband is taking mail-stealing to a whole new level. He consistantly keeps submitting “family move” change of address forms thereby getting all of our mail, money, bills and important documents sent directly to him. Then if he deems any of my mail important for me to have (like health insurance cards for our kids) then he gives me the contents. I have reported his actions to the postal office 5 times! Each time they correct it, he just files another false form! What else can I do!!!
Some people are vandalizing our property. Later I also noticed that our mail was missing too. This has been going on for 2 days. I told the police and they are “investigating”. What should I do? I live in Ontario, Canada.
You were right on, Dave. If Netflix gets too many reports of stolen discs they could cancel the account. Netflix has to be aware of this problem. I’ve had 14 discs stolen. Netflix let it go because of years with no problems. We have mail box delivery, now. Before a P O Box with no problems. How can this be monitored. Netflix has to come up with ideas.
I’m 17, and have been on winter break for 2 weeks now. I’ve been home alone the whole time because my mother’s been in mexico on a trip.
She called me today and asked me about what we’ve gotten in the mail. I’ve completely forgotten about checking the mail.
We’ve suspected our neighbors across the street from us of stealing our mail, but no hard evidence.
(We’ve seen them open our mailbox everytime they get theirs though.)
So I go out, you expect there to be A LOT of mail not having checked it in 2 weeks… only a letter from my school and a gas bill -__- she has bank statements and we both have numerous things that come in the mail that in the wrong hands, it’s just wrong! Personal information, data, and for god sakes’ privacy!!! I’m going to have to explain to her while she’s a looong ways from home that they’ve been stealing mail.. =/ I think they wanted to break in 2 nights ago, I have a feeling they didn’t think anyone’s been living here because 2 younger teens that live there knocked on my door and silently walked around the house. Peeping tom and harry perhaps? I don’t really know how I can catch them though. No camera for another week or two. All I’ve got is my phone. Which can’t even zoom. Ideas anyone? I’d try a bear trap if I had one d=
i’m also 17 and live with my fiance. our landlord keeps holding our packages that i ordered for people for CHISTMAS. he has been doing this a lot. i don’t know what to do cause he knows we can’t move anywhere cause of our credit and raises the rent. nothing has been signed. but all i want is for my sister to get her christmas gift that i promised her.
and jeff…..
watch deathnote. or national treasure (the fingerprint with the lemon juice.) when in doubt relate to movies and you will find the way…. :)