Sechelt's Marlene Janke had a letter she mailed stolen from a Vancouver area mailbox last week, and Canada Post says it's not uncommon.
"Unfortunately there's always going to be the odd occurrence whereby someone who has a will to get into the box will get in," said Colleen Frick, director of communications for Canada Post in the west.
"I don't want to give the specifics, to be honest, and I don't even know exactly how a culprit would get into the box, because the more we talk about our security methods, we feel the less secure we're going to be."
Janke put two cards into a Vancouver mailbox on July 18 while she was in the Fairview Slopes area visiting her son. Those cards were to be picked up the following morning at 9 a.m. with the rest of the mail in the box. But Janke received a phone call the next day from a passerby who found one of the envelopes she had mailed ripped open and left on the street.
"I guess she [the passerby] found the envelope and I always put on a return address label and she looked up our number," Janke said.
The woman who found the envelope had dropped off a letter at the mailbox the day before as well, which she also found on the street, according to Janke.
"Her's [the passerby's] actually had a cheque in it," Janke said, noting her card had two scratch tickets inside of it. "I guess whoever got into the box helped themselves because the card wasn't even there. All she found was the envelope."
But Canada Post said the mailbox in question showed no signs of tampering.
"I checked with our security and investigations team and there have been no records of theft or break-ins to that box or any in the vicinity for several months," Frick said.
How the thieves got to the letters inside the box is uncertain, but Canada Post has some tips to keep future mail deposits safe.
Canada Post advises customers deposit outgoing letters as close to the scheduled pick up time as possible or drop letters off at the post office where they are more secure.
They also discourage sending cash or cheques in the mail. Canada Post encourages customers to use postal money orders available at all post offices.
If you see an overturned or vandalized street letterbox, Canada Post asks that you call 1-800-267-1177 as soon as possible to report it.
Frick says Canada Post is looking at other options to make their mailboxes more theft-proof as well.
"We've discovered something called an anti-pry kit which is to further harden the boxes, so we're constantly looking to try to improve the security of our equipment because there is just that element of people who have a will to do bad. We have to always try to stay a step ahead of them. And we do work hard to guard against it," she said.
