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      <h3>Holiday Identity Theft by Mail</h3>
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      <i>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;By: Christine Neilson<br>
      Posted: 2009-01-01 06:10:49</i>
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      Are you thinking about sending out gift cards or checks with your holiday cards this year? If you are, you might want to think again. It turns out postal workers might be looking to stuff their own Christmas stockings using your gifts and identity.Stolen gift cards and Christmas checks are bad enough, but when you consider all the personal and financial information on your checks, it's easy to see how tempting identity theft could be for a postal worker who's feeling the economic pinch.Just last week there were three cases on federal criminal dockets that involved postal workers in Houston:- Peter Lim spread a little bit of bah humbug by stealing $55 in cash, a $10 gift card from Wal-Mart, a $20 gift card from Target and a $50 gift card from Lowe's. Ironically, the gift cards were actually being used as bait for another postal employee suspected of theft.- Postal carrier LaNardsha Rose not only stole Christmas checks, she used the identities of three of the gift givers to open credit card accounts.- Calvin Williams stole $1,400 that customers had doled out for stamps.And, all those times you just assumed that the cards you sent out were simply "lost in the mail"? They just might have fallen into the hands of the New Orleans postal worker who was hoarding Christmas cards in her basement, going through them at her leisure, and then stealing any gift cards she found.So what's the safest way to send Christmas cheer across the miles? How about e-mailing an e-gift card instead of sending one by snail mail? The electronic gift cards are widely available now from Target.com, Amazon.com, Lowes.com, Walmart.com, BathandBody.com and many other online retailers. As a bonus, you can send it out as late as December 24th and it will still arrive in time for Christmas! Plus, you can pat yourself on the back for saving a tree!And, if you're worried about identity theft, the Internet is still a whole lot safer than your mailbox.To learn more about identity theft prevention you can visit the LifeLock partner site and use the LifeLock Promotion Code that is available to receive a discount on enrollment.
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