ALERT! – Scammers Target USPS Informed Delivery Service – ALERT!

Published On November 17, 2018 | By Tom Huskerson | Alerts

Tax season and the holidays are special to criminals. The latest target of criminals is none other than the U.S. Postal Service and the millions of deliveries it makes over the holiday season.  The scam is simple but effective. These criminals simply sign up for the postal service Informed Delivery service using your address. Identity thieves are exploiting a loophole in the free postal service intended to give postal customers a heads up to whats coming in the mail that day. Users of the service receive daily emails around 9:00AM each morning with scanned images of all first-class mail that will be delivered to their address later that day.

So what are the crooks doing?  According to Krebs on Security, criminals are  signing up with Informed Delivery using other people’s names and addresses but are using an email address that they monitor. Theses criminals have already opened up new lines of credit in other people’s name using stolen identities. They then monitor the Informed Delivery service address waiting for the cards to arrive. Once they see the cards are delivered they steal them out of the mailbox and no one is the wiser. The U.S. Secret Service has alerted law enforcement nationwide of  seven criminals in Michigan who allegedly used the Informed Delivery service to commit economic identity theft. They believe that similar crimes may be in the works. The Michigan crooks racked up as mush as  $400,000 in charges on the stolen cards.

The best way to protected yourself from this crime is to sign up for the Informed Delivery service before the crooks do and make sure you have locking mailbox.

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About The Author

Tom Huskerson Bio Born in Richmond Virginia Tom Huskerson is a military veteran who settled in California after his discharge. Tom attended Santa Barbara City College where he began his writing career as a campus reporter. He worked as an intern news reporter for the Santa Barbara News-Press writing feature stories before moving on to San Francisco. At San Francisco State University Tom studied broadcast communications and began to focus on the Internet. He completed his graduate thesis on Internet advertising. Tom was the first student to ever focus on the Internet as a graduate student at San Francisco State University. After graduation he went to work for Zona Research in California’s Silicone Valley. As a research associate Tom supported senior analyst writing on the latest developments in the Internet industry. During the dot com boom Tom worked for several web businesses as a market researcher and analyst. As a writer and researcher Tom has authored various technical works including a training program for Charles Schwab security. Other projects included professional presentations on workplace violence and hiring security contractors. Tom has also written both fiction and non-fiction works and blogging for a travel website. He has published two books of short stories and completed two novels. Tom is the owner of Scribe of Life Literature and EbonyCandle.com. Tom is not the chief editor for the OnTechStreet. com. A news and information blog that focuses on tech news for African-Americans. The blog is the result of his desire to inform the African American community of the dangers and benefits of the cyber age. In his blog Tom reports on information security, new and analysis, scams and hoaxes, legal happenings and various topics that arise from the age of information. Tom believes that technology is a necessary tool for black people and they should know what is happening. Tom writes believing that techno speak is for the professional and that valuable information can be communicated using plain language. As a result he has embraced the motto, Less Tech, More Knowledge.

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