Somebody stamp out these mail thieves!
Scooter-riding sleazeballs have been shamelessly stealing letters from a Greenwich Village mailbox during the holiday season’s postal paradise.
Surveillance footage obtained by The Post shows the not-so-merry mooches ride up on mopeds or scooters to the mailbox at University Place and East Ninth Street and rifle through it on four different recent mornings.
The thefts coincided with a spate of fishy checks being cashed in the area near Washington Square Park – including from one local resident who sent a $150 check through the mailbox, only later to see it deposited for 13 times the original amount.
“There was a check for $1,950 and I thought, ‘I haven’t written a check for this,’” said the 69-year-old former tech staffer, who wished to remain anonymous.
Thieves have been caught on video four separate times recently stealing from a Greenwich Village mailbox. Obtained by the NY Post
Local worker Isha Matko said thieves stole her rent check from the mailbox years ago. Georgett Roberts/NY Post
The rash of mailbox marauding began in late August, when tenants in Jay Miranda’s building near the box noticed checks they sent through the mailbox had been fraudulently changed.
“Let’s say the check was for $100, it was changed to $1,000. They lost money,” Miranda, the building’s resident manager, said.
“It’s not fair. People work hard for their money. The amount of mail they have taken is insane.”
Videos from outside the building showed a consistent pattern: a lowlife riding up and blithely parking a scooter or a moped on the sidewalk during the early morning hours before brazenly reaching into the mailbox.
Sometimes, the crooks would shine a flashlight as they sifted through the mailbox. One masked thief appears to be wearing delivery worker garb, down to a boxy backpack and reflective stripes.
The thefts all follow a similar pattern. Obtained by the NY Post
Another shows a moon-faced mope riding a scooter up to the mailbox, nervously fidgeting through it before taking — and oafishly dropping — some sort of parcel.
The videos were all taken between roughly 1:20 a.m. and 2:15 a.m. on Nov. 24, Nov. 25, Dec. 2 and Dec. 8.
Miranda said he sent videos to the local US Postal Service postmaster, but hadn’t heard back.
He said NYPD cops told him they can’t do anything because the mailbox is “government property.”
“I’ve reported it several times, but nothing has been done,” he said.
But cops have been investigating several recent check frauds in the area, with at least one unfolding right after the first theft depicted on video.
The mailbox marauders ride mopeds or scooters up to the box, rummage inside and ride off. Obtained by the NY Post
The former tech staffer’s $150 check was sent on Nov. 23, police said — roughly six hours before video shows the moon-faced klutz bumbling through the mailbox.
He said the thief deposited the check digitally, altering the amount and the recipient’s name.
After discovering the fraud, the frustrated retiree went to the Chase bank right near the mailbox to sort it out. He said a bank employee already knew which mailbox was the culprit.
“Before I finished my sentence, she said you mean in that mailbox over there?” and pointed across the street to the mailbox nearby, he said.
The West Village old timer was not the only Chase client to suffer the same fate, he said.
“Nobody was surprised,” he said, noting he got fully refunded.
Fed-up locals complained that it’s been happening for years.
Isha Matko, 55, a cashier at a nearby Gristedes supermarket, said she used to mail her rent checks from that very mailbox until a few years ago – when she discovered they were being stolen.
“It’s still going on?” she said angrily as she watched one of the recent videos. “Something needs to be done so they can’t pull it out.”
The mailbox has been such a magnet for thieves that other locals, such as Todd Benedetto, 48, also said they avoid using it altogether.
One moon-faced mope rode a scooter before bumbling through the mailbox. Obtained by the NY Post
The klutzy thief dropped a parcel before scooting into the night. Obtained by the NY Post
Benedetto said the mailbox — which is very close to his family’s business, A Uno, a clothing and jewelry store — once felt mysteriously sticky.
“I said to myself, ‘Maybe they are trying to not make the mail go down,’ not knowing they were stealing from it,” he said.
The thieves ended up snatching and cashing a $1,000 check Benedetto put in the mailbox about a year ago, he said.
Getting a refund was such a hassle that Benedetto ended up eating the cost — and vowing never to use the mailbox again.
“I go the post office. It’s a couple blocks away,” he said. “It’s nice to have that kind of thing there on the corner but it’s not a nice thing.”
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One of Miranda’s fellow resident managers said he tells people in his building to not use the mailbox.
“I don’t know why that box is still there,” he said. “People in my building have complained about it, I think, since around COVID.”
Representatives with the US Postal Service’s postal inspectors didn’t return a request for comment.
Matko said the culprits who stole her rent money from the mailbox need to finally be caught, especially during the holiday season.
“It’s Christmas time, people are sending gift cards, money to a grandmother or whatever the case may be,” she said.
— Additional reporting by Jennifer Bain and Kevin Sheehan