The Wall Street Journal has seen fit to publish a letter they received from a Washington, D.C. attorney describing his experience sending through the USPS a check for a substantial amount of money to the District of Columbia taxing authority. The check was stolen, altered, and cashed at his own bank. After dealing with government officials, law enforcement, and his bank for months the bank reluctantly returned his funds. Although the identity of the thief is known, the D.C. Metropolitan Police have yet to make an arrest.
Utility companies and internet service providers handle billing and receipts through businesses. One is listed only by post office box numbers at Carol Stream, Illinois, in DuPage County. Felony Center Chicago is well known for crime of every description. A payment sent through the mail is easily identified by a thief simply through the address. USPS employees are very much aware of this. The real problem seems to be banks accepting altered checks.
But the issue is, in a way, bigger than monetary theft. A collateral and contributing phenomenon is election fraud. If it's unsafe to send money through the mails how can the integrity of mail-in electoral ballots be assured? Evidently it can't be. Ballots in the mail can be easily determined, just as payments made to a Carol Stream, Illinois, post office box. If a stolen check can be easily cashed how hard would it be to cast a fake ballot?
Among the many problems of the USPS, electrification of their truck fleet, employee retention, email antiquating first class service, etc., now added is brazen and ignored theft. The US tries to tell third world nations how to operate when it can't manage its own affairs.
No comments:
Post a Comment