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I thought this was one of the best scams i have seen in quite some time...
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...s-form-to-move-ups-headquarters-to-his-apartm
Man Allegedly Used Change Of Address Form To Move UPS Headquarters To His Apartment
May 10, 20183:24 PM ET
LAUREL WAMSLEY
Twitter
A Chicago man has been charged with mail fraud and mail theft after allegedly changing UPS's corporate mailing address to the address of his own apartment. Here, mail is sorted at Chicago's main post office in 2006.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Updated at 4:37 p.m. ET
As federal crimes go, this one seems to have been ridiculously easy to pull off.
Dushaun Henderson-Spruce submitted a U.S. Postal Service change of address form on Oct. 26, 2017, according to court documents. He requested changing a corporation's mailing address from an address in Atlanta to the address of his apartment on Chicago's North Side.
The post office duly updated the address, and Henderson-Spruce allegedly began receiving the company's mail — including checks. It went on for months. Prosecutors say he deposited some $58,000 in checks improperly forwarded to his address.
The corporation isn't named in the court documents, but the Chicago Tribunereports that it's the shipping company UPS.
In a statement to NPR, UPS said it "was notified that some U.S. mail, intended for UPS employees at the company's headquarters address, was redirected by an unauthorized change of address by a third party. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) corrected the issue and the USPS Postal Inspector is investigating the incident."
Article continues after sponsorship
reported that he "hinted that he'd received the UPS mail as a result of a mix-up that was not his fault and that his identity may have been stolen, but he declined to elaborate."
In November 2016, police in nearby Evanston, Ill., charged Henderson-Spruce with one count of misdemeanor bank fraud, for possession of a stolen check.
Henderson-Spruce now faces federal charges of mail theft, which carries a maximum sentence of five years, and mail fraud, which can be up to 20.
While this case is eye-popping — no one at the post office thought it weird that a guy was getting thousands of pieces of a company's mail forwarded to his apartment? — there have been many reports of regular people having their mailing addresses changed without their knowledge.
KPIX, a CBS affiliate in San Francisco, reported in November that it had filed Freedom of Information Act requests with multiple branches of the Postal Service. It learned that the Postal Inspection Service had received 17,077 complaints "relating to fraudulent address changes" in the past year and that the USPS had received "approximately 46,058 inquiries from customers concerning the validity of the change-of-address order" since January 2016.
In a statement to NPR, the USPS says it processed nearly 37 million change-of-address requests last year, and not all change-of-address complaints turn out to be fraud:
"The rate of suspicious transactions reported by customers is less than 1/10 of 1 percent and many of the complaints are determined not to be related to fraud. A number of these complaints can be traced to domestic or other disputes between families and friends, who have access as a result of their relationship to information which allows one to forward mail. Still others can be attributed to service-related issues.
"We are continuously implementing security enhancements to enhance the security of our change of address process. We continue to assess these options, as we determine the best alternatives to protect the needs of our customers."
The Postal Service encourages customers to retrieve their mail on a daily basis or monitor it online. "Any suspicious activity, or non-receipt of mail over a couple days should be reported to their local post office, or to our federal law enforcement arm, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service."
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...s-form-to-move-ups-headquarters-to-his-apartm
Man Allegedly Used Change Of Address Form To Move UPS Headquarters To His Apartment
May 10, 20183:24 PM ET
LAUREL WAMSLEY
A Chicago man has been charged with mail fraud and mail theft after allegedly changing UPS's corporate mailing address to the address of his own apartment. Here, mail is sorted at Chicago's main post office in 2006.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Updated at 4:37 p.m. ET
As federal crimes go, this one seems to have been ridiculously easy to pull off.
Dushaun Henderson-Spruce submitted a U.S. Postal Service change of address form on Oct. 26, 2017, according to court documents. He requested changing a corporation's mailing address from an address in Atlanta to the address of his apartment on Chicago's North Side.
The post office duly updated the address, and Henderson-Spruce allegedly began receiving the company's mail — including checks. It went on for months. Prosecutors say he deposited some $58,000 in checks improperly forwarded to his address.
The corporation isn't named in the court documents, but the Chicago Tribunereports that it's the shipping company UPS.
In a statement to NPR, UPS said it "was notified that some U.S. mail, intended for UPS employees at the company's headquarters address, was redirected by an unauthorized change of address by a third party. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) corrected the issue and the USPS Postal Inspector is investigating the incident."
Article continues after sponsorship
reported that he "hinted that he'd received the UPS mail as a result of a mix-up that was not his fault and that his identity may have been stolen, but he declined to elaborate."
In November 2016, police in nearby Evanston, Ill., charged Henderson-Spruce with one count of misdemeanor bank fraud, for possession of a stolen check.
Henderson-Spruce now faces federal charges of mail theft, which carries a maximum sentence of five years, and mail fraud, which can be up to 20.
While this case is eye-popping — no one at the post office thought it weird that a guy was getting thousands of pieces of a company's mail forwarded to his apartment? — there have been many reports of regular people having their mailing addresses changed without their knowledge.
KPIX, a CBS affiliate in San Francisco, reported in November that it had filed Freedom of Information Act requests with multiple branches of the Postal Service. It learned that the Postal Inspection Service had received 17,077 complaints "relating to fraudulent address changes" in the past year and that the USPS had received "approximately 46,058 inquiries from customers concerning the validity of the change-of-address order" since January 2016.
In a statement to NPR, the USPS says it processed nearly 37 million change-of-address requests last year, and not all change-of-address complaints turn out to be fraud:
"The rate of suspicious transactions reported by customers is less than 1/10 of 1 percent and many of the complaints are determined not to be related to fraud. A number of these complaints can be traced to domestic or other disputes between families and friends, who have access as a result of their relationship to information which allows one to forward mail. Still others can be attributed to service-related issues.
"We are continuously implementing security enhancements to enhance the security of our change of address process. We continue to assess these options, as we determine the best alternatives to protect the needs of our customers."
The Postal Service encourages customers to retrieve their mail on a daily basis or monitor it online. "Any suspicious activity, or non-receipt of mail over a couple days should be reported to their local post office, or to our federal law enforcement arm, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service."
