If you’ve received a confirmation in the mail of your change of address – and you haven’t moved – consider it a tip that you’ve become a victim of identity theft.

This type of scam is becoming more and more common, and it’s easy to do. Scammers first obtain a change of address form from a local post office. Then, using information as simple as mail they’ve swiped from your mailbox or the phone book, they submit a change of address. Soon, all your mail comes to the thief, giving him all the information he needs to steal your identity and ruin your credit.

But the U.S. Postal Service does sort of help you out in this circumstance. When a change of address is submitted, the USPS sends a verification letter to both the old address and the new one. The letter will instruct you to contact the post office if the change is inappropriate. If you receive such a letter and you didn’t request a change of address, contact the post office immediately, The local postmaster will forward your mail if you don’t tell him or her to do otherwise.

This scam has happened all over the country, but there have been a multitude of cases reported in New Mexico and Texas.

Some tips to remember:

- If you receive mail at your home, pay attention if you don’t get any mail for more than a couple of days, even if other people at your home are getting mail. A change of address does not necessarily redirect mail for everyone at a particular address.

- Consider mailing your letters and bills from a secure public mailbox or at the post office, rather than from your home mailbox.

- Pick up your mail as soon as possible after it arrives at your mailbox. Don’t leave it sitting in the box overnight.

- Consider purchasing a locking mailbox.

Tags: id theft, mail identity theft

This entry was posted on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 at 1:37 pm and is filed under Identity Theft. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.