Protecting Your Mail From Identity Thieves

Shared Accommodation

If you live in shared accommodation it can be difficult to ensure the security of your mail, as it may be delivered to a central place where anyone in the building can access it.  If this is the case then you may want to ask for any important mail such as new credit cards or check books to be delivered to your local branch, so that you can pick them up in person.  These days you can also access a lot of regular credit accounts online, which means you will no longer need a paper statement, so you could reduce the amount of sensitive information being mailed to you by contacting your bank, credit card and cell phone providers and arranging to have an online accounts so that you can then cancel your paper statements.

Private Property

If you own your own home then you can improve the security of your mail by making sure you have fitted a lock on your mail box, and if you are going to be away from home for any length of time you can arrange to have your mail picked up by a trusted friend or neighbour, or redirected temporarily to another address or your local post office branch using the USPS official ‘Hold Mail’ and ‘Mail Forwarding’ services.

If you live in either shared or private accommodation and have serious concerns about the security of the mail delivered to your property then you can arrange to have a USPS Post Office Box, which start from as little as $10 per month and offer a very secure, private way to received your mail.  This is also useful if you move around a lot, as you can still retain the same PO Box address regardless of where you are living, which is much less hassle then trying to get your address changed all the time with your account providers.