Do Postal Service Allow To Change Address Without My Permission

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Because the Usa Postal service requires no documentation for a change of address, con artists tin can change your mailing address without you realizing it.

Anyone can walk into whatever U.S. post office and complete a change of accost (COA) grade to reroute your mail. Your sensitive documents would then be delivered to a new accost that might be selected by a crook to gather information needed to steal your identity.

All that's needed to do this is your proper name, your address and a forged signature on the form. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) does not require any identification. Instead, you'll exist mailed a notice confirming the alter of address. But that is easy to miss, or ignore. If yous do nothing, the change goes forrard.

How likely is this to happen? Less than 1-10th of one per centum of COA requests (fewer than 37,000) are reported to the USPS as suspicious every year. Just you should even so be on guard. An audit by the USPS inspector full general in 2008 found that weaknesses in the way addresses were changed could "contribute to identity theft."

So, how can y'all protect yourself?

Don't toss USPS notices

After a COA request is processed, the USPS sends an accost-change confirmation to both your address and the forwarding address. Be careful not to mistake it for junk mail.

Notation missing mail

Letters addressed to "Occupant" or "Resident" will continue coming after the COA is completed. But if you lot get no post addressed to your proper name for several consecutive days, contact your mail office to determine if y'all've been victimized.

Be watchful

Routinely cheque your credit rating and review credit carte du jour bills for unexplained activity. And if yous oasis't already, put a freeze on your credit reports.

These are essential tasks that volition help protect you from financial fraud.

Sid Kirchheimer is the author of Scam-Proof Your Life, published by AARP Books/Sterling.

Do Postal Service Allow To Change Address Without My Permission,

Source: https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2018/scam-alert-change-of-address-fraud.html#:~:text=Diversion%20cons%20are%20rare%20but%20real&text=Because%20the%20United%20States%20Postal,form%20to%20reroute%20your%20mail.

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