It started with a letter from a bank.

A payment was overdue.

Before long, similar letters swarmed into James and Alice Harris’ Crab Flats home from credit card and insurance companies. All were past due bills. The bank confirmed the checks were cashed — but not by businesses they were written to.

A check to pay their credit card bill was spent in a local restaurant. Another was used to buy gas.

The Harrises discovered they were victims of mail identity theft.

And they’re not alone.

All across the county, police agencies and U.S. Postal Service officials are seeing an increase of the crime. And most of it is linked to one thing — methamphetamine.

Victims

On a rainy afternoon, just a day after the New Year began, the Harrises talked in their living room about the impact the theft has made in their lives. Outside, the sound of cars on busy Cape Arago Highway mixed with the low murmur from a television set. James, 84, wearing a blue bathrobe, sat in a recliner looking through stacks and stacks of bills, bank statements and canceled checks. As he searched, his 79-year-old wife watched him with concern.

James is frustrated and angry about the financial mess associated with the stolen checks, he said. In addition to stealing the couple’s identity, the crooks wiped out their bank account. Complicating the issue are repeated calls from creditors demanding money for late payments, he said.

“It’s been awful,” he said. “They take the money right out of your bank and you can’t do anything about it.”

Alice said the pain associated with the crime goes deeper — James has been in and out of the hospital a number of times over the past few months. She said his nerves are just about shot from dealing with the aftermath.

“I try to keep him laughing, but it’s hard,” she said.

The only people laughing appear to be the thieves.

The problem

According to a report from the Federal Trade Commission, about 10 million Americans have reported being victims of identity theft, costing consumers $5 billion a year.

The problem of mail identity theft has grown steadily in the nation and Coos County over the past 10 years, but December 2007 was especially egregious for the area, said Coos Bay Crime Prevention Officer Randy Sparks.

“The reports of mail theft and identity theft are darn near a daily occurrence,” Sparks said, adding Coos Bay has had more than 100 reports of identity theft and about 52 of stolen mail in 2007.

He attributed the rise locally to methamphetamine abusers who have found an easy and lucrative way to pay for their habit.

“It’s easy money. These are the same folks that would break into your home or steal items from your car or steal from the businesses. But, through identity theft and mail theft, they have a greater return and a lower risk,” Sparks said. “If you cash one check for $1,000 that’s all profit. If you steal a $1,000 item and fence it, you might get $100, $200 or $300 for it.”

 He said he learned of the connection between narcotics and mail identity theft through interviews with recent arrestees.

U.S. Postal Inspector Scott Helton, who covers Oregon’s South Coast, agreed with Sparks’ assessment about the relationship between drugs and identity theft.

“I have not worked a case in Coos County that didn’t involve methamphetamine as a motive,” Helton said. He noted that, of six prior federal defendants from Coos County, all had issues with methamphetamine.

Helton said he’s noticed a nearly 15-percent increase in mail theft in 2007 within his coverage area, as compared to prior years. Much of the trouble occurred in the first three weeks of December — right around the time kicker checks from the state and Christmas cards packed with money, checks and other goodies arrived in the mail.

“That gave rise to more mail theft in general,” Helton said. “Identity theft, a lot of people believe, is the crime of the future. It’s so easy to do and it’s nonviolent.”

And the thieves grow bold, committing the crime again and again until they get caught, Helton said.

“Stealing mail is a federal crime,” Helton said, noting there is no difference between taking a check or a postcard in the eyes of the law. “If you take information from the mail and you use it to commit identity theft and you are convicted under the Federal Aggravated Identity Theft statute, you’ll get a minimum of two years. Yeah, they’ll hit you pretty good.”

While mail theft is an ongoing and prevalent issue, less than 1 percent of U.S. mail is stolen, he added.

“By and large, the vast majority of mail that goes into the system gets picked up and goes where it belongs,” he said.

Committing the crime

Sparks said mail identity theft typically starts when a thief prowls for mailboxes containing outgoing mail. Boxes with their mail flag up are often a signal to thieves. These crimes are typically committed at night and in rural areas, he said.

“That’s usually a red flag for them to check that box,” Sparks said.

From there, the thief will remove all the mail, take it to another location and search letters for anything valuable. If he finds an outgoing check, information such as signatures, the amount and who it is for will be chemically washed away. Although Sparks would not detail how a check is chemically washed so as to not inform aspiring criminals, he said it is a simple process.

“Then the ID thief will simply write in what amount they want the check to be, forge the name and cash it out at the business of their choosing. That’s the scary part about this. ... It’s so simple,” Sparks said.

“From the time they steal the check until they cash it at a bank is three to four hours — quite often before the victim knows it’s been stolen. So the banks have not been alerted that (it’s) been stolen.”

And it doesn’t stop with checks.

Sgt. Pat Downing of the Coos County Sheriff’s Office said mail theft used to be about criminals looking for quick cash tucked inside birthday, graduation and Christmas cards. But now, they’re looking for a bigger take.

“Their haul can be a lot bigger than just $100 in cash,” Downing said, noting letters from the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles, credit card applications and other mail that includes a person’s private information such as date of birth, Social Security number, or driver’s license, can be used to steal an identity.  

“It’s very easy access to documentation that comes in through the mail,” Downing said. “It doesn’t take anything but to just drive down the road and take things out of the box.”

He said there have been rashes of mail theft in rural areas lately, including in Glasgow. He suggested that those areas of the county are hit hard because of low visibility, distance between neighbors and few people own secure, locking mailboxes.

Coos Bay Postmaster Kelly Muntifering said most reports of mail theft go to local law enforcement agencies, so he is unsure of the frequency of cases. However, when he receives reports of mail that has been rifled — in which items have been removed from a letter or mail is completely discarded because there is no immediate value to a thief — people will bring it in to the USPS office.

 “We try to redirect that because oftentimes these thieves will take mail out of boxes, check them and throw them into another box so they don’t end up with the actual evidence,” Muntifering said.

Prevention

One morning in early October, Coos Bay resident Tom McElmurry noticed pieces of paper scattered around his trash can. After opening the top of the can, McElmurry discovered mail from more than a dozen local residents.

One piece belonged to Roger Dixon, a dentist with an office in Coos Bay.

Dixon, a lifelong Coos Bay resident, said he got a call from police that they found a credit card statement. But he’s familiar with fraud — in July 2006 a crook racked up about $1,000 in fraudulent charges on his credit card.

He said he remembers a time when people would often leave their car doors unlocked. Things have changed. He now has his home mail delivered and picked up from his office.

“It’s a hassle and it’s kind of sad,” he said.

But Dixon is on the right track by removing the temptation.

“ID theft and mail theft — these really are preventable crimes. If we just take sensible precautions, we can make it too hard for the thieves to work on this,” Sparks said. “It’s causing a lot of havoc in our businesses and our community and we are all paying for it in the long run with higher prices at the store — except for the ID thief who is paying with your money.”