Trust Layer for Physical and Mailing Address Control

“Undeliverable-as-Addressed in August 2026 — Total Nixie Volume: 82,359,903”

“WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service reported a $2.5 billion net loss for the fiscal third quarter, nearly $600 million less of a loss than the same quarter last year, and urged a series of actions from Congress to address its mounting financial crisis.”

“The FBI and USPIS are warning that check fraud is on the rise, with a significant volume enabled through mail theft. Suspicious Activity Reports related to check fraud have nearly doubled from 2021 to 2023. Fraudsters take advantage of regulations requiring financial institutions to make check funds available within specified timeframes, which is often too short a window for the consumer or financial institutions to identify and stop the fraud. As a result, the compromised checks clear, and the funds are withdrawn by the criminal participants before the fraud is detected.”

“The Federal Trade Commission and the federal financial institution regulatory agencies have sent to the Federal Register for publication final rules on identity theft “red flags” and address discrepancies.”

“Over the last 3 years, USCIS received over 200,000 reports from approved applicants about missing cards. The number of cards sent to wrong addresses has incrementally increased since 2013 due in part to complex processes for updating addresses, ELIS limitations, and factors beyond the agency’s control.”

“What We Found: The Postal Service PARS mail does not have a service standard, which reduces the accountability and visibility for processing and delivering this mail to customers. Additionally, in FYs 2023 and 2024, delivery units improperly returned large volumes of undeliverable Marketing Mail (over 178 million), which should have been disposed of at the delivery unit, back to processing plants. They also improperly returned mail without a valid COA (over 449 million) back to processing plants – and since no updated address was identified when the mailpiece was run through the PARS sorting equipment, it was cycled back to the same delivery unit. These actions cost the Postal Service about $17.2 million and $95.5 million, respectively. Without further improvements to processes, we forecast an additional $124.5 million will be incurred in FYs 2025 and 2026. Finally, the Postal Service’s publicly available data for PARS mail was based on outdated information and was not reliable.”

“Objective: Our objective was to assess the effectiveness of the U.S Postal Service’s Secure Destruction program.

The Secure Destruction program is one of the Postal Service’s key environmental sustainability initiatives. The Postal Service developed the program with commercial mailers (mailers) in 2014 to facilitate more efficient, secure, and environmentally responsible handling of undeliverable as addressed (UAA) mail. This mail could not be delivered for reasons including illegible addresses, individuals or businesses which have moved, or unknown addressees.

The Postal Service reported nearly 5.3 billion pieces of UAA mail in fiscal year (FY) 2020. When UAA mail is identified, it is either forwarded, returned to sender, or treated as waste depending on the mail class and service specifications. Handling this mail cost the Postal Service over $1.3 billion in FY 2020.”

“Under the rules, if a credit union receives an address change request and then receives a request for a replacement or additional debit or credit card within a short period (at least 30 days) it must take steps to verify the address change before issuing the card, such as notifying the member at the previous address or through another agreed-upon communication method.”

“Court documents state that during this timeframe, Miller allegedly devised a scheme to obtain funds from U.S. Bank customers by changing an account holder’s original mailing address for debit cards issued by U.S. Bank, causing debit cards to be mailed to a residential address in Akron owned by the defendant.”

“Paper checks contain personal information, and whomever gets their hands on the check can see that info. Check fraud occurs when a criminal obtains money illegally using stolen checks or check information. Scammers often target the mail to steal checks and other personal or financial information with the intent to commit fraud and identity theft. They may even alter a check payee, dollar amount or the forge endorsement. Don’t let this happen to you.”

“Individuals and organized criminal operations are swiping checks from residential mailboxes or the iconic blue drop-off boxes. Then, they’re removing the ink and selling the newly blank check or writing in whatever they want. They’re also picking off checks paying government assistance, Social Security, or unemployment benefits.”

“Executive Summary: This Financial Trend Analysis analyzes threat pattern and trend information on mail theft-related check fraud incidents, based on BSA data filed with FinCEN between 27 February and 31 August 2023 (the review period). During the review period, FinCEN received 15,417 BSA reports related to mail theft-related check fraud associated with more than $688 million in transactions, which may include both actual and attempted transactions. Mail theft-related check fraud losses can affect personal savings, checking accounts, business accounts, brokerage accounts and retirement savings, as well as negatively impact financial institutions that typically cover check fraud losses.”

“A recent study found more than 10 percent of auto policies had verifiable garaging address defects, pointing to $3 billion in annual premium leakage related to this issue.”

“The total amount of reported premium lost in 2025 as a result of New York insureds who misrepresented the principal place where their vehicles were garaged and/or driven was $50M.”

“An error in the mailing distribution process resulted in letters sent to members that may have included an individual that was not on their health plan, Shelly Bendit, senior manager of corporate communications for CVS Health, said via email.”