Some people who use the San Roque Post Office in Santa Barbara are concerned after they say mail theft in the area has gone unaddressed.
"Just be careful where you mail your letters," said longtime Santa Barbara resident Marla Hemingway.
Hemingway has lived down the street from the San Roque Post Office since the 1940s and says she had no issues until this year when three mailed checks went missing in July.
"They haven’t cleared through the bank or arrived at the person I mailed them to," Hemingway added.
Postal Service employees at the San Roque office declined to be on camera but confirmed mail theft occurred at their location on August 15.
Some customers say it left them feeling apprehensive.
"We'll see if this arrives. We're going to go back and tell the people we mailed it to that we mailed it today," said Santa Barbara resident Larry Fisher.
Other people I spoke with at the post office said they have had letters with checks inside go missing, some mailed in June.
Brianna Aguilar of Montecito Bank & Trust says in July, they started to notice a spike in check fraud.
"We used to see about two to three claims a month and we were up to over 20," Aguilar said.
How does the fraud work?
"They don't change the amount, the signature, or the account number, or the check number. So when it goes through, the person who wrote the check, yeah, '$150 came out of my account. I was expecting that,' but it didn't go to the payee that you were expecting. So usually, you don't find out that it happened until maybe your account gets reported as delinquent," Aguilar explained.
To avoid fraud, Aguilar suggests double-checking the payee on check images, avoiding sending checks in the mail whenever possible, and if you are a victim, contact law enforcement immediately.
For now, resident K.C. Williamson isn’t taking any chances.
"Maybe from now on I'll bring it inside, hand it to one of the postal workers," Williamson said.
If you are a victim of mail theft, the Postal Service asks you to report the incident to the Inspection Service at (877) 876-2455 or by filing a report online at www.uspis.gov.
The U.S. Postal Service says there is currently an ongoing investigation into the theft at San Roque.
