Dishonest Mailservice people !

Bagheera

Bagheera

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Oct 6, 1998
Messages
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Hi guys,

You all know that our Scouting group has supplied over the past years many of you with Firesteels and Glowrings and (almost) all the transactions have been a pleasure to do.

We always asked for cash $$ and this has worked fine for a long time until somewhere some absolutely criminal postal employee working in a mail sorting center (that's what I think) somehow discovered that mail to our Scouting group could contain some $$.
We changed, didn't use our Scouting groups name anymore and it worked fine until some time last year when a few letters were opened and emptied.

We haven't had any problems for the past 6 months unil last Saturday when an padded envelope arrived that had been carefully opened on the opposite site of the selfadhesive flap closure, the Hallmark wiches card letter opened money removed and wish card put back in envelope and the padded envelope carefully closed with a 1/2" wide band of clear sticky tape.

I immediately called our Postal investigators, but I guess these guys will only work when our queen or some politician has this happening to him.
Well yesterday we got our mail 'Safety Sealed' in a shrink wrap by the mail office and it contained one of the last envelopes with payment for some Firesteels. It looked fine my wife emailed me but when I opened the padded envelope at home in the evening, using the supplied 'ripcord' they have inserted in it it was empty! :mad:
Closer inspection showed that again that s.n of a b.tch had carefully opened the selfadhesive closure flap, removed the contents and closed that flap securing it with some 1/2" wide tape.
Well it turned out he reused the 1/2" wide tape that the fllow forumite used to Xtra secure it.

I again called the Postal investigators did my story in some very graphic (but friendly ;) ) words and asked what they would do about it.
Well I don't expect much from them, so I'm looking for alternate ways of receiving $$ for our Scouting groups fundraiser.

Could you please let me know if for example it wouldn't be to costly for future payments to ask for Forumites to send a US Postal Money Order to a Forum buddy we have so that he AND ONLY HE can cash the $$ and eventually send them over to us by Registered Airmail in a stronger secure Registered envelope?

Can one send a money-order to another person in the US so that only that person can cash it in? and what does one need to do that, name, birthdate, address?

Anybody who has some nifty chemical that can be used on "fake" letters from the US to our group that would stain/dye somebodies hands upon contact with it and stay on for a long time, just drop me an email.

I'm ready to go onto the War-path as I can't stand it when we and also our forum friends get scr.w.d this way by some criminal postal employee.

Any tips are welcome,

Best Scouting wishes from Holland,

Bagheera
 
All we need is a name to make a postal money order out to and an address to send it to. After he's collected enough to make it worthwhile he can send it to Holland -- but let's not send a large amount in cash. There ought to be some safer way that won't be too expensive since that fee will only have to be paid once.

Do you know anybody who can take credit card payments, Bagheera? Some friend who owns a small business? It might be hard to find someone who'd be willing to take a lot of credit card payments for you, but since it'll only be once in a while ... and since it's for the Scouts ... maybe a local store could do it for you.
 
It's NEVER a good plan to send cash money through the mail (even USA mail), but why can't an International Postal Money Order be used?
 
Hi Dan,

An International money order gets payed in the local currency and they deduct a nice amount of money from it exchanging $$ to Euro's.

And we often pay stuff we buy in the US by sending over the cash and sofar from us to the USA has never gone foul.

Paypal is no real option for the sporadic fundraisers we do.

I was thinking that the US money order for inside the US would be a very cheap and formost secure way of sending somebody money (inside the US).

Well we'll think about the options, best Scouting wishes from Holland,

Bagheera
 
Try joining Pay Pal. Then use the sell feature and select donation. It will create a shopping cart button that allows you to accept donations and have them deposited either directly to your bank account or to a credit card that Pay Pal provides you and you can use the balance to make purchases.

You can also create shopping cart buttons for a number of items you may sell. I think it functions from Holland as well as it does here.
 
Bagheera, the only way the thief knows where the money may be going is by the address. Can you set it up that some people send the money to different addresses, like those of other members of the troop? If he steals from you then, it has to be a member of the troop tipping him off.

I can get you all sorts of nasty chemicals, but I bet it's not only as illegal as stealing, but the police will go after you faster than the Inspectors go after the thieves.

Very frustrating. I put in a career with the US Postal Service, and I saw how our Inspectors loved to catch internal thieves. They would arrest them on the workfloor, in front of the whole crew, and take them out in handcuffs.

I think the idea of sending it to someone in the US, who can Register it to you later on, sounds pretty secure. I imagine Registry oversees is the same as here: each person handling the pouch the mail travels in, as well as sorting each individual piece, has to sign for it. Getting caught for stealing from Registry is only a matter of when, not if.
 
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