Man Allegedly Used Change Of Address Form To Move UPS Headquarters To His Apartment (npr.org)

As federal crimes go, this one seems to have been ridiculously easy to pull off. From a report: Dushaun Henderson-Spruce submitted a U.S. Postal Service change of address form on Oct. 26, 2017, according to court documents. He requested changing a corporation's mailing address from an address in Atlanta to the address of his apartment on Chicago's North Side. The post office duly updated the address, and Henderson-Spruce allegedly began receiving the company's mail -- including checks. It went on for months. Prosecutors say he deposited some $58,000 in checks improperly forwarded to his address.

The corporation isn't named in the court documents, but the Chicago Tribune reports that it's the shipping company UPS. In a statement to NPR, UPS said it "was notified that some U.S. mail, intended for UPS employees at the company's headquarters address, was redirected by an unauthorized change of address by a third party. The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) corrected the issue and the USPS Postal Inspector is investigating the incident."

Comments

deposited some checks into his own account?

[CrimsonAvenger]

I'm really curious as to how he managed that, even if the checks were mailed to his house.

Or are there really people dumb enough to mail off a check without bothering to fill in the "Pay to the Order of" line???

Re:deposited some checks into his own account?

[amiga3D]

The reason this is so easy is that only a total fucking idiot would do it. There is no way to get away with this. Yes, you can run amuck for a few weeks, then your life will be totally destroyed. I might try this if I had terminal cancer and was going to die very soon, and no conscience. The costs to make this impossible are vastly higher than the minor damage done by the occasional fool.

Better idea

[Okian Warrior]

Take two states that have towns with the same name, such as Westborough (a common town name in the US).

Fill out a change of address form, of your mark for Westborough, State1. Now all their mail will be going to Westborough, State1.

Fill out two other forms, one sending mail for your mark from Westborough, State1 to Westborough, State2, and the other sending mail for your mark from Westborough, State 2 to Westborough, State 1. This effectively makes a "loop" of mail forwarding at the endpoint.

(Consider adding a hand-written note "my address was changed to the wrong state by accident - please forward all my mail to the correct state until I can get it all fixed" to each side.)

I once asked a friend who works at the post office how long this would take to get sorted out, and he replied "the question is, would they be able to get this sorted out at all".

Re:Better idea

[Solandri]

There was actually an old check forging scheme which relied on this. The forger would alter the routing number on the check, then deposit it. The bank would note that it was a local check, and only put a 2-3 day hold on the deposited funds. The key was that checks were only considered bad if the issuing bank notified the deposit bank that it was bad (negative confirmation). So the fraud relied in preventing any such notification from being generated, which the depositing bank would take to mean the check was good, and release the funds to the depositor.

Although the check bore the name and address of the Chemical Bank in New York, the Federal Reserve data-processing system scanned only the magnetic-ink code on it, identified it as a Bank of America check, and routed it to Los Angeles. The check remained in transit for perhaps two days. At the end of that time, it was run through the computer mechanism at the Bank of America. The computer, instantly searching its memory for a Bank of America account number matching that of the magnetic-ink strip on the check, rejected the check, which then went into a clerical pool for manual handling. Since the printed logotype on the check clearly identified it as a check that belonged in the Chemical Bank in New York, the clerk handling the machine-rejected check sent it back to the Chemical Bank by mail, assuming that a simple routing error had been made. The check was then in transit for another two days. Back at the Chemical Bank, the check was put into the computerized sorting system for final clearance. But instead of that, it went into motion again: the Chemical Bank computing system passed it on to the Federal Reserve System, which routed it out to the Los Angeles bank again, which routinely sent it back to New York, and so on.

The fraud was uncovered only when checks issued by the depositor became so frayed from mechanical handling in the computer system that they could no longer be read automatically ⦠[b]y that time, according to an auditor who told me of the affair, the depositor had disappeared with more than $1 million in cash.