For the second time in six months, residents near Indian River Drive have had their community mailboxes vandalized and raided, causing major inconvenience and even more grievous privacy concerns.
After first being broken into in September last year, someone pried open and looted the mailboxes again in late February, according to area resident Peter Teevan.
Almost a month later, the old damaged boxes are still waiting to be replaced. Canada Post has asked residents affected by the loss of the boxes to go to a facility on Harbour Avenue to collect their mail, where Teevan said customer service is lacking.
More serious though is whose hands the mail has fallen into. Teevan said he expects thieves targeted the mailboxes again in February because they were hoping to get T4s and tax receipts, which are a treasure trove in personal information useful for identity theft.
That neighbourhood was one of the first to receive community mailboxes in the late 1980s. Since that time, property values have exploded and longtime residents have excellent credit as a result, making them ideal targets for credit fraud, Teevan said.
Teevan, who works in the auto sales industry, has personally seen identity theft in action. In one case, a fraudster purchased a brand new $70,000 truck using the ID of a North Vancouver man whose mail had been stolen.
Once thieves have accessed a person’s name, address, date of birth and social insurance number, they can apply for a credit history report, which will provide information on their employer and income — all the pieces needed to secure on-the-spot financing.
“With those four bits of information, you can pretty much prove you’re anybody,” Teevan said.
With Canada Post phasing out home delivery over the next few years, the Crown corporation risks losing all relevance if it doesn’t show more action in tackling mail and identity theft, Teevan said.
“People aren’t just going to sit by and take it. What they’re going to do is take steps and say, ‘If Canada Post doesn’t care about security of my personal information, I do.’
The alternative, he said, is abandoning the practice of sending any sensitive information by regular mail, “… and Canada Post will become nothing but a junk mail distributor,” he said.
Canada Post says the boxes will be replaced soon.
“We are replacing the boxes in that area with the new model that we’ve been rolling out in communities across the country as part of our conversion,” said Jon Hamilton, Canada Post spokesman. “We’re just waiting on some equipment. Hopefully by the end of this week or early next week, they’ll be replaced and back in service for the people. We certainly regret any inconvenience.”
Hamilton couldn’t disclose how the new boxes are different, other than to say they have more security features. Anyone who suspects their personal information has been compromised should keep a close eye on their bills and financial statements for any irregularities.
Canada Post isn’t scheduled to end home delivery on the North Shore until at least 2016, Hamilton said.
North Vancouver RCMP, meanwhile, have little to update on the case as mail theft investigations are typically handed over to Canada Post’s security team, according to Cpl. Richard De Jong, North Vancouver RCMP spokesman.
“If there are any witnesses, we investigate them but we bring in Canada Post security and advise them. I know on that one, there are no suspects. We document. We take pictures. We canvass the neighbourhood,” he said.
It’s the “$1-million question” whether there is any link between the first break-in in September and the one in February, De Jong said.
“Because we don’t get a lot of mailbox thefts, knock-on-wood, on the North Shore, it’s possible but we don’t know because we don’t have enough evidence or anything at this point to say they’re connected.”
