Stolen Mail: What You Need to Do

I am a regular online shopper. I love finding great deals, being able to buy quality stuff for less than half the price, a new and sealed pair of branded sunglasses that someone has received as a gift and doesn't want, brand new tagged shirts that someone bought only to realize that they got the wrong size and it's too late to exchange it, and many other products. I love the variety that I can fine online, I love the price range, and I love the convenience of having the items appear at your door step.

About three weeks ago, I realized that any item I ordered was taking too long to arrive. Usually, within the UK, a first class delivery would take two to three days at the most, and here, many of the items had not arrived after more than ten days or two weeks. I kept blaming the Royal Mail services and kept waiting, patiently, without taking any action. When I contacted the sellers, they would say that I should have received the items by now and there's a problem with the delivery system.

We live in a building with 12 flats, ours is the 12th one, at the very top. One day as my husband and I were sleeping in late as he didn't have to work, the mail man rings and through the intercom tells us we have a parcel, he leaves it downstairs and leaves. My husband answered the bell, came back to bed, dosed off and about 20 - 25 minutes went downstairs to pick up our parcel, only to find out it was no longer there.

It was a routine for the mail men to come and drop off our parcels inside the building near the mail boxes without even notifying us, and we would often just go downstairs to check mail and would find our parcels lying there. I didn't like it, but I thought maybe that's how it is here.

After this particular event, I understood where the rest of the parcels had gone.. all stolen!!

Shocked and angry, I called the police. They took all the details are looking into the matter. They told me to stick a note next to our mailbox downstairs telling the mail men to not leave the parcels there as they are being stolen, it would also let the thief know that we have now found out. I was then told to contact the Royal Mail to confirm if the other parcels had really arrived, I did that, and the parcels HAD arrived, they had it on record. I also called the agency we are renting the flat from and told them what was going on, they are speaking to the property owner to get a surveillance camera installed.

The family living directly below us has been pestering us ever since we moved in. The guy stays at home, smokes and drinks all day, is over-weight and looks upset and angry all the time. FLATS ARE NOISY!! Yet he comes up, kicking and punching our door saying that he can hear people "walking" and it bothers him so much that his child (a boy around 20) can't sleep at night because of the noise that we are creating by "walking". Twice he did this while we were entertaining guests. We actually started tip-toeing around the house, but he didn't stop. We eventually had to tell him that this is harrassment and we will have to take it to the authorities if he didn't stop.

He took it to the authorities before we did, and we got a letter telling us to "keep it down". It was ok till then, we didn't mind, we could do nothing more and knew he wouldn't stop so we just let it go. Since we were doing nothing wrong, so we didn't have anything to worry about, or so we thought. Then our mail started disappearing and we would find junk in our mailbox, wrappers and empty french fries packs from Mc Donalds that someone would put in our mail box after finishing. Bugging the hell out of us.

I thought I will write about it to be able to help anyone going through more or less the same. Mail theft is a crime. If you feel your mail is being stolen, do the following ASAP:

1- Most mail thieves are neighbours. Keep your eyes and your ears open. Do you feel someone keeps an eye on when your mail arrives? Are you on not so good terms with someone? Do you feel someone would want to hurt or bother you?

2- Even if something very small disappears, call the police there and then! Today it might have been something small, but tomorrow they could become more courageous and then your bank statements might start disappearing and the next thing you know, you're a victim of identity theft.

3- If a delivery is delayed, call the mail service you are using, call or write to the seller, ask them both about the parcel, when the seller posted it, when the delivery system planned on delivering it to you, whether or not according to them it has been delivered. The sooner you find out, the sooner you can take action and the better the chances of you catching the culprit and keeping more mail from being stolen.

4- If you own the house you live in, install a suveillance camera. If you rent a house/flat, contact the property owners and tell them about the thefts and insist on having a suveillance camera installation. If it is taking too long, I would suggest you buy one of those small spy cameras and put one up yourself temporarily to collect evidence, until the authorities decide to put one up, which can take ages.

5- Last but not least, do not let it go!! Most people don't take action for the fear of the process taking forever to be resolved, for the fear of being dragged to court or many other problems, but remember, you are the victim! It is your right to take action and as a victim, you will get all the support. Don't let it go. If you let it go, the thief will only become stronger and more courageous with time.

If I had found out when they stole the first parcel, or if I had taken action when the first item failed to arrive, the rest might not have been stolen. They even stole larger parcels, ever so boldly! I'm not sure if it's the same lunatic neighbour of ours, or someone else from the building, but the police are working on finding out, and I'm not letting it go.