Neither rain nor sleet nor mail thieves

05/30/2003

By LISA MARTIN / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

A small Dallas company wants to change the way you and the rest of the country get mail.

Although 1,900 postal inspectors are dispatched nationwide to protect the nation's mail and 5,858 arrests for mail theft were made in fiscal 2002, according to postal inspector Molly McMinn, crimes involving mailboxes are rising.

"Crime statistics show that mail theft and identity theft are the No. 1 white-collar crime, and it's a problem that only keeps growing," says Bobbie Cox, who, with her late husband, Jim, designed a new mailbox. "There was a day when we didn't lock the doors to our house or the door to our car, and now that seems incredible. It'll be the same thing with leaving our mail so exposed. We won't believe there was a time when we did that."

The Coxes' invention is a locking, virtually indestructible residential mailbox made of 18-gauge steel that foils thieves and vandals alike. Approved by the U.S. Postal Service, the Postal Vault works like this: When the letter carrier drops the mail into the box, it falls through a triggered trapdoor. The homeowner retrieves the mail from the bottom of the vault with a key. As with standard mailboxes, there's a space for outgoing letters.

Because even the smallest of these rectangular-shaped units can hold weeks of mail, the Postal Vault is appealing to frequent travelers. An overflowing mailbox is a signal to thieves that the homeowner is absent.

Ranging from $300 to $450 for the Postal Vaults and $400 to $500 for larger delivery vaults, which are designed to accommodate UPS and FedEx packages, these heavy-duty units aren't cheap. But, says the company owner, the cost of mail theft can prove far higher.

"The thieves get into your mail and pluck out the important stuff, then put the rest back in your box so you don't realize what's happened," says Chuck Hosier, a Postal Vault executive.

If the appearance issue is a deal breaker (no one's going to argue that the Postal Vault is a thing of beauty, but then, few mailboxes are), it can be sheathed in brick, stone or any other surfacing material to match a home's exterior. The company's Web site, www.postalvault.com, features photographs of these modified units.

Looks notwithstanding, the Postal Vault has earned some high-profile fans. Dallas restaurateur Phil Romano and advertising guru Liener Temerlin have purchased boxes, which are available at Lowe's, Elliott's Hardware and Nob Hill Hardware.

Lisa Martin is an Arlington free-lance writer.

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