Mail delivery finds safety in numbers

Bob Shemeligian

Tuesday, April 14, 1998 | 9:56 a.m.

Partly because mail theft is on the increase in Las Vegas, the local branch of the U.S. Postal Service is changing the way it does business.

But Las Vegas resident John Datian questions whether the post office is changing quickly enough.

Datian, 47, knows more than most about mail theft.

In late January, three bills were stolen from the mailbox outside his Southwest Las Vegas home only a few minutes after he had left them for the mail carrier.

Unlike most victims of mail theft who don't realize a crime has been committed until they get their monthly bank statements, Datian discovered that he had been robbed when he saw his carrier approaching. That's because Datian reached in his mailbox to grab the letters he had just posted to give to the carrier and came up empty-handed.

Within hours, Datian had stopped payment on the checks and had closed his account. But he claims it has taken him much longer to reach proper Postal Service authorities to report the incident.

"When I called the 800 number for postal customer service, I was told that I needed to contact a non-800 number for assistance in Arizona. Why is this? I thought the Postal Service was customer-service oriented," Datian wrote in a recent letter to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Datian, a state dairy inspector, also charged that despite the fact that the crime of mail theft is on the rise, the post office has done little to educate the public.

"Why doesn't the post office send out some kind of flier alerting people to the problem of mail theft?" Datian asked. "I just think there should be more due diligence on the part of the Postal Service."

Datian's letter was forwarded to U.S. Postal Inspector Donald Obritsch, one of nine inspectors serving the Las Vegas area. While it would be unfair to describe Obritsch's response as "going postal," the inspector obviously was not pleased.

"Obviously Mr. Datian is venting his frustrations on the system because of his personal circumstances. Those of us in the law-enforcement community share his frustrations. However, Mr. Datian has been afforded my direct phone number throughout these past few months and I find many of his complaints to be unfounded," Obritsch writes in a March 16 response to Reid's office.

"Although he (Datian) makes several valid points about the lack of resources necessary to resolve some of these crimes, I find it offensive that he has taken this attack on the service," the letter continues.

Obritsch pointed out that within weeks of the theft of Datian's mail, the post office purchased and installed a neighborhood delivery collection box unit for delivery of mail to that area.

The locked units, which are also referred to as cluster boxes, have been installed throughout Southern Nevada in recent years.

Obritsch said the first cluster boxes were installed locally in 1984. Today there are 16,000 cluster boxes in various area neighborhoods, and they account for more than a third of all local deliveries.

Although it cost the post office $1,000 to purchase and install each cluster box, Obritsch said the boxes are well worth it to the public and to the post office.

"These (cluster boxes) are going up in in virtually all of the new neighborhoods," Obritsch said. "They're a real win-win for the customer and the Postal Service. Because the boxes are locked, the mail is secure, and there's also the labor issue."

Obritsch explained that the post office, a quasi-federal agency, is 99 percent self-funded, "and from that 32-cent stamp, 80 percent pays for labor."

Cluster boxes allow carriers to make up to 16 deliveries at one location, which Obritsch explained represents an obvious savings on labor.

Metro Police detectives also praise installation of the cluster boxes as a good way to help deal with the growing problem of mail theft.

"We're seeing a lot of this type of crime in Las Vegas and throughout the Southwest," said Det. Paul Evans in Metro's forgery detail. "I don't know if it's the warmer weather that draws the criminals."

Evans said the red flag on household mailboxes that residents raise when they post mail for the carrier is exactly that -- a red flag to mail thieves that there could be some personal checks or credit card statements within arm's reach.

"The thieves typically wash the checks (chemically remove much of the writing) and substitute their own names and increase the dollar amount," said Evans, who added that thieves also use account numbers from credit card statements to order merchandise over the telephone.

Det. Gene Olewinski, also of the forgery detail, said detectives refer to mail thieves as "flaggers" because of their attention to mail pick-up and delivery times.

"When the flag is up, they grab the outgoing (checks), and then they wait until 2 p.m., after the carrier delivers the mail, and they grab the credit card statements," Olewinski said.