All up and down the quiet suburban streets in her city of 90,000 stand the silent little receptacles containing the golden nuggets she daily sought. Out of a job and wasted every night on alcohol, she got her kids off to school and then went to work gathering cash from Brick Mailboxes in Nashville . Many of the mailboxes she targeted belonged to senior citizens They were the trusting souls who lived in older homes seldom locked and who had for their lifetimes enjoyed the convenience of daily mail delivery.

Some days she would casually stroll down the street with her backpack or oversized hand bag, following just minutes behind the mail carrier's truck. A really good haul would be her opportunity to steal mail right off the truck when the mail carrier left to delivery packages that could not fit into the Masonry Maiboxes Nashville TN . Often, after the mail carrier had turned the corner, she would grab the freshly delivered mail from individual mailboxes along the block.

Typically, on such days, she would go home and tear anxiously through the stolen booty for the cash she needed to support herself and her young children. What was she looking for? She was looking for cash. The ill acquired treasures she found in people's mail were no longer actual cash, since even grandmothers have caught on to not sending cash through the mail any longer. She was looking for checks already printed with names and addresses of credit card holders. Banks send these pre-approved checks monthly to their customers in good standing. Anyone can use such checks. Often she would even find the newly issued credit or debit cards banks send out by mail.

Then, she would file personal information for specific individuals whose identities she might actually be able to steal. With a driver's license or other photo id card and especially a Social Security number she would plan how she would become that person, change the address of that person's utility bills and use them for herself. She planned how to turn mail she had pilfered into the cash which would support her alcoholism and provide for her children.

The solution for those trusting souls is to invest in a locking mailbox. The time for this sad alcoholic mother to steal her way through life has been interrupted, as she was caught by law enforcement and earned jail time for each mailbox she looted. Mail theft is a federal crime. She got six years in prison. Perhaps this incarceration will be a blessing for her. Maybe the real golden nugget is the sobriety she will have achieved from participating in the alcohol rehab program in prison. In any case, who wants to have provided the nuggets that got her there in the first place? The security of a locking mailbox is available to all who seek it