A Delta man is raising security concerns after a community mailbox was left unlocked and wasn’t fixed for four days.
Resident Roger Meyer said he noticed his mailbox unit was wide open at around 3 p.m. Friday, and even though he immediately contacted Canada Post, it took until Tuesday morning for the mailbox to be closed.
Meyer said when he first called, a Canada Post representative told him the issue was a “high priority” and would be fixed within four hours, but he woke up the next morning to see the mailbox door still ajar.
“I phone back and asked, ‘Would it be okay if I put the mail in a box to keep it safe?’ And I was told ‘No, that would be tampering,’” Meyer said. “I thought, ‘Yeah, I guess it is. I’d better leave it to be tampered with by vandals and bad guys.’”
On Sunday, Meyer said he noticed that rain had dampened some of the mail in the 12-mailbox unit. He called Canada Post again, and said a representative once again told him the closure of the mailbox was a high priority and someone would be out to fix it immediately.
A contractor was dispatched to fix the box on Tuesday morning, nearly four days after Meyer said he originally contacted Canada Post. Now, the Delta man is still looking for answers.
“It really alarms me that credit card numbers, bank statements, things with personal information, maybe people receiving cheques, was compromised,” he said. “I feel very insecure about it, and I’m very upset about it actually.”
Meyer believes part of the problem is that there is no emergency number listed on the mailbox, and with no local number to call, he had to contact Canada Post representatives in Eastern Canada, delaying things further.
“My concern is with Canada Post and the fact that they don’t seem too concerned,” he said.
Canada Post would not confirm whether a mail carrier had left the box unlocked, but an Ottawa-based spokesperson told CTV News the four-day delay was “unacceptable” and the Crown corporation is taking it seriously.
An official statement from Canada Post was expected later Tuesday.
Meyer said it didn’t appear that any mail was stolen from the mailbox.
Community mailboxes have been under fire since Canada Post announced in December 2013 it would phase out door-to-door delivery in favour of the so-called superboxes in an effort to return to financial stability.
Earlier this year, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers claimed that thousands of Metro Vancouver residents have had their community mailboxes broken into and sensitive information stolen by thieves.
With a report from CTV Vancouver's Peter Grainger.
