TULSA -- A new program from USPS called Informed Delivery allows people to track what they are getting in the mail before it ever shows up.
People who sign up will receive pictures sent to their email of all the letters they should expect to receive in their mailbox that day. They will also know if something is missing.
Lauren Glendening could have avoided her debit card being stolen if she had this new service.
She did not know her bank was issuing her a new debit card through the mail. She only found out when she went to use her existing card.
"My card wasn't working, so I looked at my account through my bank app and noticed there were some charges I wasn't familiar with," Glendening said. "I called my bank and verified that they sent me a card with a chip in it, which I was unaware of."
Not long before that, Glendening said she got a letter from her apartment management saying complexes in the area were seeing mail theft.
"I didn't really think it was going to be an issue, but I was wrong," Glendening said.
According to the notice she received, thieves have made a tool that opens the entire wall of locked mailboxes at apartment complexes and have been stealing the mail. That is when she knew her card had been stolen from her box before she had the chance to check it.
"The bank verified which card number was used and I verified that I did not have that card, so we put two and two together and realized it was stolen," Glendening said.
Getting her money back took about three weeks.
Glendening said she would have checked her mailbox sooner if she knew the card was there.
If she had USPS Informed Delivery at the time, she would have known and could have canceled the card when she did not see it in her mailbox before the person who stole it ever had the chance to use it.
"It would have been nice to be informed by another party that, 'Here you are expecting this mail. You should be checking,' " Glendening said.
Informed delivery uses existing technology used to sort the mail. It only sends images of letter-sized mail, not magazines.
It is currently only available for residences, not businesses. USPS said most zip codes are eligible.
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