Locked Canada Post community mailboxes aren’t as secure as you think

We don't leave the doors to our homes unlocked any more (sorry, Michael Moore) but most of us Canadians are awfully trusting when it comes to our mail, often leaving it in an easily accessible unlocked box right at the front of the house.

But if you're beginning to think the mail in those lockable community mailboxes common in newer subdivisions is more secure, think again.

Jeanette Bellrichard of Surrey, a suburb of Vancouver, is angry after her neighbourhood mailbox was rifled for the third straight year, CBC News reports.

She went to check her mailbox last weekend and found the main door in the back that gives posties access to all the boxes had been pried open and the mailboxes emptied.

Bellrichard said she demanded Canada Post do something but the Crown corporation has refused.

"It's been very frustrating," she told CBC News. "And now I have no faith whatsoever in that box."

Thieves stole a $10,000 cheque, tax documents and her daughter's first credit card in a rip-off two years ago, Bellrichard said. Crooks then stole her daughter's identity and ran up thousands in credit card charges, even trying to buy a car in Ontario.

She's asked Canada Post to find a way to secure the communal mailbox or deliver the mail to her home.

"I'm entitled to have mail delivered to me safely," she said.

[ Related: Canada Post mailbox charge angers homebuilders ]

Canada Post began moving to community boxes for new residential developments a couple of decades ago in part to save money. It touts them as a "secure and convenient one-stop pickup and delivery service."

"Individually locked compartments keep your mail dry and secure ... Rest easy knowing your mail is always under lock and key," Canada Post promises.

Corporation spokesman John Caines says the communal boxes are generally safe and make delivery more efficient.

"More and more people are being put on centralized delivery, which is community delivery box or kiosk — those kinds of things," he told CBC News. "It's much more efficient."

Yes, for thieves also. Like mail carriers, they don't have to traipse from house to house, Surrey RCMP say.

For Bellrichard, Canada Post added insult to injury by suggesting she pay to rent a private mail box, which can cost up to $172 a year.

"I'm angry and I'm really frustrated," Bellrichard told CBC News on Friday. "It's like me as a citizen, I don't know where to go next."

But Canada Post insists community boxes are more secure than leaving mail in unlocked home mailboxes.

[ Related: Canada Post worker arrested in mail theft probe ]

The Criminal Code's section 356 (1) calls for a prison sentence of up to 10 years for someone convicted for any kind of mail theft.

RCMP in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby issued a public notice last month about a rash of mail thefts at apartment buildings where multiple mailboxes were forced open.

Purloined master keys also have been used sometimes to get into the mailboxes in apartment buildings but often the thieves turn out to be postal workers themselves.

In January, Calgary police charged a postie with theft of more than $30,000 in merchandise that passed through a Canada Post distribution facility over several months last year, CTV News reported.

In northern Manitoba last year, a rural postal deliveryman was arrested when RCMP searched his home and found a cache of undelivered items, mostly electronics.

And in 2010, a former mail carrier in suburban Edmonton pleaded guilty to stealing more than 160,000 pieces of mail over 16 years, and was sentenced to 22 months of house arrest, the St. Albert Gazette reported.