Eric Parkhurst, owner of Winewood Organics, had rushed outside after a security camera showed a woman peer into the mailbox outside his west-side marijuana business, then move on to the Ann Arbor Observer’s mailbox next door.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service fielded 154 reports of mail theft in 2022, including two from the Ann Arbor Observer. The magazine switched to a post office box—and recently installed an armored mailbox for tenant Helix Steel. | Photo: John Hilton
When Parkhurst challenged her, the woman hurried down Winewood Ave. toward W. Stadium. It seemed no harm had been done—but weeks later, the Observer got a call from an advertiser: A check the company had written to the magazine was being presented to a bank in another state—with a different payee and for a larger amount.
When the bank called to verify the payment, the company refused. The man who’d tried to cash the check grabbed it and ran. But another complaint soon followed, and it became clear that at least once in February 2022, checks had been stolen from the Observer’s curbside mailbox. The Observer removed it and switched to a post-office box.
Mail theft has surged in Ann Arbor since 2019. Complaints more than tripled in 2020, from sixty-two to 206, according to a January response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Complaints in 2021 (158) and 2022 (154) remained more than double 2019’s figure. By last July 24—the most recent date included in the FOIA response—the U.S. Postal Inspection Service had already received 114 complaints.
It’s not just Ann Arbor. Fueled by social media and anonymous internet sales, mail theft is rampant across the U.S. A 2022 article in Bloomberg Businessweek, drawing on research at Georgia State University, described how criminal networks promote mail theft, buy stolen checks online, “wash” and forge them, and hire people to cash them. Screenshots showed large collections of checks offered for sale, along with keys to postal collection boxes, guns, and stacks of $100 bills.
Along with personal and business mailboxes, twenty-one USPS collection boxes in Ann Arbor were burglarized over the four-and-a-half year period covered by the FOIA response. In March 2022, postal inspectors backed by Ann Arbor and Pittsfield police apprehended a man dressed in a postal worker’s uniform and carrying a collection-box key who’d been rifling through boxes on Airport Blvd. In March of last year, Calvin James Riles Jr. was arraigned on two felony charges of mail theft and impersonating a mail carrier and was released on bond. Swept up in a larger investigation, his preliminary examination has since been adjourned three times and reset five times; at press time, it was scheduled for April 24.
In a congressional briefing last year, the postal service and postal inspection service announced the rollout of 12,000 high-security collection boxes. These have narrow, reinforced slots that make it harder for thieves to get into them, but also make it harder for postal customers to deposit their mail. At drive-up boxes, most people now have to get out of their cars, posing significant challenges for individuals with disabilities. And even the newest models can be breached: Two outside the Green Rd. post office were forced open last June. The postal service now recommends mailing checks inside a post office.
Check thefts began to subside last year, with only five reported through July. For convenience as well as safety, the Observer and other businesses are encouraging customers to use integrated online payment systems. Individuals, too, are writing fewer checks, as they migrate to mobile payment services and digital payment networks like Venmo, Apple Pay, and Zelle.
But many people and businesses still need physical mail, and it’s hard to beat the convenience of having it delivered directly to your door. Last fall, the Observer rented the front of its Winewood building to Helix Steel. In January, Helix requested a curbside box.
Installed during a warm spell in early February, the new “Mail Boss” is made of steel, secured by a lock, and embedded in concrete.
