St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce, SJPD warn local businesses of stolen checks

By Leah Rainwater

A Facebook post from the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce on Monday warned local business owners to take precautions with their mail.

The post said that “checks are being stolen from business mailboxes to commit check fraud.”

News-Press NOW spoke with a police sergeant with the St. Joseph Police Department who said there’s some precautionary steps to take as well.

“A big thing is knowing when your letter carrier picks up mail from your location,” said Sgt. Jeremy Peters. “You don’t want to leave your mail in the mailbox when you wake up in the morning, if they pick up later in the afternoon. Do what you can to try to limit somebody’s opportunity to try to take advantage of a situation.”

Peters also said if you don’t know what time your mail carrier comes, you can always call the post office or drop off mail physically.

“A safe way to get your mail would be to take it to the post office physically and drop it off there, where it’s in their secure facility,” said Peters.

Peters said the SJPD doesn’t normally get many calls when it comes to stolen mail, contributing to check fraud.

However, he said contacting the post office is also a good route to go if important mail happens to be stolen from your mailbox.

“It’s not something that we see a lot of reports on,” Peters said. “But there’s also the postal inspector where some of those complaints would follow through with them.”

The Chamber also advised to install locking mailboxes or to use other payment methods to avoid stolen checks.