Feb 16, 2008

An open plea to the neighbors who ended up with our mail: please return it, pronto!

I feel bad for J.D. of Get Rich Slowly - a couple of days ago, someone stole some mail from his mailbox. Unfortunately, I can relate only too well to how he's feeling. You see, sometime last week, our mail carrier put our tax organizer package sent by our accountant in one of neighbor's mailboxes.

At least, I'm surmising that's what happened to the package (I'll call it a package but it's really a thick envelope). I know it was sent out on the 5th and that it hasn't arrived yet. I've double checked with our accountant to make sure they sent it to the right address. Our mailbox is in a communal area, and apparently the mail hasn't been delivered by our regular carrier lately since there have been lots of envelopes left out for the rightful addressee.

Normally, I wouldn't worry so much, but the package apparently contains one document that lists our social security numbers. I'm not sure why the accountant sent the package to our house since they have our PO Box on file too. Of course, as I've mentioned, we haven't been impressed by the woman who took over from our last accountant. It's looking more and more like we'll be looking for someone else to handle our accounting matters for us next year.

In the meantime, I want to say to the neighbors who ended up with our mail:
I don't want to believe that one of our neighbors would commit identity theft. I want to believe that you've simply thrown your mail into a pile and not sorted through it yet, and haven't realized that you're sitting on something important to us. Please return the package to us, unopened, so that I don't have to worry for eternity that our social security numbers are out there for some enterprising unethical thief to have wreak havoc with. Let me also say, in the nicest way possible, that if you do decide to engage in criminal behavior with the information in that package, I will do everything I can to see that you are prosecuted and sent to jail. So please, just return the *$(& package!
Update: I'm feeling a little foolish now. The package postmarked February 5 arrived today, several hours after I published this post. I don't understand why it takes the USPS 10 days to deliver something from Santa Monica, but I'm very relieved to know that our social security numbers aren't compromised. Whew!

1 comment:

rebekah said...

Don't feel bad. We've had serious problems with mail delivery lately. Not sure what's up at the USPS.