Don't use the blue USPS dropboxes

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I don't have a link for you, but I wanted to make sure forumites have seen the message from the US Post Office to avoid using the blue drop boxes, not just on street corners, but those in front of post offices. Theft! Evidently there are a lot of people out there with the "arrow keys" that allow entry into the boxes. Also, robberies of letter carriers has gone way up since 2019. I think the numbers I read were 85 robberies in 2019, and 165 in 2021.

[kork13]

I'm curious where you got that notice from USPS... Because I can't find it anywhere. Not in my mailbox, on the USPS website, from any news outlet, or .... really anywhere on Google. Recommending against the use of their drop-boxes would be a dramatic policy shift, and I guarantee that it would be very heavily advertised. Yes, theft does happen, and there are recommendations (from a couple small, locally-focused news outlets -- not USPS) not to leave valuable letters/parcels in the drop-boxes overnight. But that's the closest I've been able to

Frankly, that sounds like a line of bull, put into the social media space to deceive, create mistrust in the USPS, and inflame anger from...everyone. I'm not levying those accusations at you by any means at all..... but the veracity of that rumor seems to be highly questionable.

***In fairness, it probably doesn't help my viewpoint that I just finished talking about foreign disinformation & propaganda on social media in the thread about Musk & Twitter. I could very well be wrong, but I'm finding nothing legitimate (or otherwise, really) to back up this assertion.

[Nutria]

I think the numbers I read were 85 robberies in 2019, and 165 in 2021.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes435052.htm

There are 335,000 mail carriers, each of whom work about 230 days per year. That's 77 million carrier-hours per year, and they were robbed in 165 of them.

That 2% of 1% of 1% of the times they could have been robbed. Even if they're "only" on the road half the time, that still a whopping 2% of 1% of 1% of the times they could have been robbed.

Color me Not Worried about robbery.

My mother's a retired mail carrier, and she says that the real and significant problem is postal worker laziness.

[disneysteve]

I can't believe that's true. If you do find a story, please share the link. As kork said, if they were telling people to stop using mailboxes, that story would be all over the news. 165 robberies nationwide in a year? There are probably more general robberies than that in my own town and I live in a very low crime area.

[SavingBucks]

In my area, the blue mailboxes in a drop off zone in front the USPS office were broken into several times (strings with glue or something like that) and those boxes were removed. After awhile they were replaced with new boxes that have a much smaller opening (almost a slot) to deter theft. The closest box to my home was also removed for the same reason but not replaced. This was discussed in the local small town paper. I go inside the post office if I am in the area instead of using those boxes. And I am in a good part of the state..........................

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

---

Well, it looks like you are right, Kork, that news stories are of localized problems. Here's the story from which I got the numbers about robberies, and I did remember the numbers wrong. On Google News I found other similar stories centered on other geographic areas.

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/in...l%20identities

Sure enough, the story is local, concerning only one metropolitan area. A good part of the story gives air to the opinions of the head of the Postal Police Officers' Association and whose words read pretty sarcastic and juvenile. Admittedly, his views and statements are not the views and statements of the USPS. I did not read closely enough so thought that he had spoken as a post office official. Quite the contrary: He thinks that the Post Office is stifling public knowledge of postal problems.

I did not speak of postal robberies in order to say that our mail isn't safe generally. Just that there has been an increase in robberies. Similarly, I think we all know that theft of packages delivered by commercial services has been increasing.

So, basically...Never mind.

[myrdale]

Personally I take 100% of my mail to the drop box inside of the post office.

[ua_guy]

Ballots or sending anything of value - I run those into the post office. Everything else gets dropped in my residential mailbox. We have one of those community boxes for all the surrounding homes, each box with a lock, with a few larger lockers for packages. Since switching to one of those, we haven't had problems.

[james.hendrickson]

All - just to add to this, thefts from mail have been an issue here in Portland, Oregon. I live in a mid-rise. The building used to have the mailboxes on the outside of the building in the entryway...but they got repeatedly broken into. So, we ended up having to bring the mail boxes into the buildings entryway area.

Regarding Joan's comments about robberies/thefts...I'd just remind folks here on the board about the "dark figure" of crime.

The "dark figure" of crime is the assumption for every reported incident of crime, there is some number of unreported incidents. Wikipedia has a decent summary of this concept. Generally speaking more serious felonies such as homicides or kidnappings are more accurate in official statistics, but less serious crimes, such as petty theft, are less likely to be reported or measured.

As a final note, even if the exact numbers are fuzzy, the pubic in general does seem to feel that crime is on the upswing.

[bjl584]

I hardly mail anything, since most of what I do is done online.

Important stuff goes to the post office and is handed to the clerk

[QuarterMillionMan]

I've noticed diminishing dropboxes which is an inconvenience. Also, large mouth openings are getting harder to find as well. On eBay I sold a digital camera and shipped it in a small flat rate box insured up to $50 which the buyer never received so I refunded the money and collected the $50 insurance which I think someone stole out of the dropbox. As for those small mouth openings those are lame and can only accepts letters. Torrance, Gardena, Lawndale USPS no longer have dropboxes which I hate but have to go inside during business hours. Gone is the conveniences of after hours dropping off.

[ua_guy]

I've noticed diminishing dropboxes which is an inconvenience.

You have Louis DeJoy to thank for that, the current US Postmaster and huge republican party donor. It's one of the things he tried to do to make it harder and less secure to vote.

[myrdale]

You have Louis DeJoy to thank for that, the current US Postmaster and huge republican party donor. It's one of the things he tried to do to make it harder and less secure to vote.

Most people today (myself excluded) pay their bills online. I suspect the advent of Facebook, texting, facetime, etc has reduced the number of personal letters sent. There is a labor cost associated with drop boxes. Someone has to go out and check them daily. If they are not being utilized, then he is doing the right thing removing them from service.

Your claim is no different than saying AT&T is making it harder for people to communicate because they are taking out payphones.

Anyone can take their ballot to the post office and send it off from there. Better yet, they can show up in person at the pole on election day and vote.

[kork13]

You have Louis DeJoy to thank for that, the current US Postmaster and huge republican party donor. It's one of the things he tried to do to make it harder and less secure to vote.

Just to keep the record straight (believe me, I'm no advocate for the lunatic Trump cult)... DeJoy & the USPS did nothing abnormal with drop boxes leading up to the election. That entire kerfuffle was just a bunch of myopic politicized misinformation (once again -- I hate political divisiveness).

I linked the full press release below, and recommend that you take 2 minutes to read it all. They pretty cleanly discount most all of the arguments made about the USPS manipulating mail-in votes in the 2020 election. It's never been an issue, it wasn't in 2020, and it's not going to be. To do otherwise would discredit (and in turn decimate) a national resource that is part of our nation's life-blood.

From a USPS press release, 21 Aug 2020:
----------------------
2. Removing blue collection boxes is a decades-old protocol.

The Postal Service’s regular review and removal of blue collection boxes began years ago. Postmaster General DeJoy has been in the job since June 2020.

Over the past 10 years, over 30,000 collection boxes have been removed from around the country, averaging 3,500 boxes per year. This year, 1,463 collection boxes have been removed. In the last election year in 2016, nearly the same amount – 1,467 – were removed. No further boxes will be removed between now and the election.

	FY13	FY14	FY15	FY16	FY17	FY18	FY19	FY20	Remaining
Drop Box Count	164,099	159,729	156,729	154,006	152,539	146,252	143,977	142,300	140,837
Boxes Removed	-4,370	-3,380	-2,343	-1,467	-6,287	-2,275	-1,677	-1,463	---

Source: CPMS - Collection Point Management System
----------------------
Note that as of the press release's date, there were only ~40 days remaining in FY20.

I understand that you have political feelings, and you're welcome to them. But facts & data remain true regardless.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Derangement syndrome still occupying space in people’s heads lol.

edit to add, no one brought up politics until later. Full disclosure lifelong dem here but I know politics not allowed here so not another word from me.