Stealing christmas cards out of mail boxes for their likely cash contents?

Question

So this time of year, nearly every person with a tangible address to their name is sending and receiving Greeting Cards for the holidays.

Now, two things are true about parcels in the form of Christmas Cards:

1. The envelopes containing them are easy to spot. Shapewise, the fact that most of them come in colored, or at least off-white envelopes, and most have a logo on the envelopes, such as Hallmark.

2. Many, many, many, of these Christmas cards contain cash.

So, as I stated, nearly every mailbox in America is going to contain more than one of these cards, ingoing and outgoing, at some point this season.

So how hard would it be to drive around a neighborhood (With many outlets) in the middle of the night and look for mailboxes with flags out (Indicating outgoing mail)?

Then pull up, open the mailbox and any envelopes that look like greeting cards, take with me. And of course I would wear gloves. That way if the resident comes out to put more outgoing mail into the box the next day before the mail is picked up, and they notice the cards have been stolen, I won't have my fingerprints on any other envelopes I ruffled through.

And there's nothing suspicious about wearing mittens on a cold winter's night.

Lastly, these pieces of mail are the least likely to be reported stolen.

When Grandma puts $20 in a Christmas Card for Little Johnny, do you expect Grandma is going to know her parcel didn't makke it, or Little johnny to know he was supposed to receive it?

So, perfect way to make some extra holiday dough over the next week in a half, possibly $500 plus a night?

Hypotheticlally of course

Answer 1

You would likely get caught quite quickly if you did this, and the financial returns would be limited.



First off, driving around at night, stopping regularly and going up to people's mailboxes is likely to attract suspicion- you might get away with it once or twice, but it wouldn't be long before someone saw you. And there's always the risk that you to hit a house with a security camera, or a cop car on patrol runs into you, or someone coming home late at night (or just happens to be looking out their window) sees you. Again, the chances for any specific house are low, but if you keep doing it, the risk builds up.



You also probably wouldn't get that much at night anyway. In most neighbourhoods, the mail is delivered during the day, and the resident picks it up the same day. I always check my mail when I get home in the afternoon- it would be highly unusual for mail to remain in my letterbox overnight, and most households are the same. So you probably wouldn't get that much unless you did the stealing during the day, which would greatly increase your chances of detection.



Also, as for your "little johnny" scenario- my grandparents used to send me money in my Christmas card, and they would always call to make sure I got it. And if you happened to accidentally take something important, there's that risk as well.



In short, there are plenty of very plausible ways this scam could go wrong, and mail theft is a very serious offence. It simply isn't worth it for the off-chance of scoring a few dollars from people's Christmas cards.

Answer 2

Hey Moron, nobody puts cash in the mail anymore so you're likely to end up with a bunch of well wishes belonging to other people. Not to mention holiday patrols are up this time of year and tampering with the mail of others is a federal offense. So go ahead and try it. I guarantee if you don't get caught, you'll end up blowing more money In gas than you could ever make in ripping off Christmas Cards.

Answer 3

People don't leave their mail in the mailbox at night. Also, if an officer saw someone going house to house, mailbox to mailbox, this would arouse a lot of suspicion and likely be dealt with.

Answer 4

Stealing peoples mail is a federal crime you will get caught.Most people clear their mail boxes when they get home from work at around 6 at night so the chances of you finding mail are slim.I always clear my mail in the afternoon or morning I dont wait till the evening to do It

Answer 5

I didn't know anyone was dumb enough to send cash in the mail anymore; the post office (as well as law enforcement) has been advising against this for at least 30 years

Answer 6

Huge federal crime and you will have the Feds looking for you. There are other ways to figure it out. There are always people like me awake that might spot you, cameras etc.



If you do get caught, you will go to FEDERAL prison for a very long time. And the Feds have truth in sentencing. If you get twenty years, you will serve twenty years...No parole.

Answer 7

This isn't very original, I saw a guy doing this on a show called World's dumbest criminals, the idiot got caught red handed.