Check thefts at blue drop boxes have victims, banks seeing red

A notice on the Cornwall Bridge USPS collection box warns patrons to avoid putting mail in the box after the last posted pick-up time.
Debra A. Aleksinas
A notice on the Cornwall Bridge USPS collection box warns patrons to avoid putting mail in the box after the last posted pick-up time.
CORNWALL — Jim Young didn’t think twice when, on the evening of Dec. 23, he dropped a letter containing a $3,884 check into the iconic blue collection box outside the Cornwall Bridge Post Office.
It was addressed to the Housatonic Valley Rug Shop Inc., located roughly 100 feet away. The check never made it that far.
Instead, a crafty crook, likely under the cloak of darkness, fished that letter, and potentially others, out of the Postal Service drop box. A week later the altered check was cashed in Jamaica, New York.
Young, who owns Sharon Auto Body, wrote a replacement check to cover the purloined one but he is now mired in red tape trying to get reimbursed from his bank, NBT, for his nearly $4,000 loss. He is angry. And he is not alone.
Check fraud is a hot topic these days on a Cornwall neighborhood discussion site.
And in nearby Warren, more than a dozen residents have been victimized by mail theft from home mailboxes and the blue USPS box in the town center, according to First Selectman Greg LaCava, who, last month, posted warnings to residents via the town’s website.
LaCava said he has also been making rounds to the senior center in town to alert seniors and has been conferring with the Connecticut State Police.
One victim, he noted, had deposited mail at the Cornwall Bridge mailbox. In another case, the dollar amount on a check was changed from $500 to $15,000.
“The more I talk about it, the more I hear of other people with the same problem,” Young noted. What angers him the most, he said, is that “the U.S. Post Office has known this has been going on for three months, and they have done zero about it.”
Craig Drozd, postmaster at the Cornwall Bridge Post Office, declined to comment except to confirm that the matter is being handled by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS).
The recent spate of Litchfield County mail thefts is under investigation, said Danielle Schrage, a USPIS inspector and public information officer for Connecticut.
Her agency is the law enforcement and security arm of the United States Postal Service.
“I spoke with the investigators covering those complaints. They are aware and working very closely with the post offices to replace the standard blue collection boxes in those areas,” with newer, high-technology boxes, she reported Jan. 19.
“If there is a blue box with a pull-down handle, a lot of those are being phased out and replaced with newer ones with thinner slots to prevent fishing,” the Schrage noted. “It hasn’t happened yet but will be happening.”
In the meantime, she suggested that postal patrons bring their mail inside the Post Office, or hand it to a carrier on the street. If they must use the blue box, Schrage suggested making the deposit as close to daily pick-up times as possible.
“Don’t let your mail sit in there a minute longer than it needs to. Unfortunately, in this world, we have to give up a little convenience for security,” said the postal inspector. “We don’t live in 1950s Mayberry. We have to be a lot more savvy.”
Schrage advised victims of mail fraud to immediately contact the USPIS at www.uspis.gov/report and fill out a complaint online, or call 877-876-2455, so that the agency can track in real time when and where thefts are taking place and can gather information for criminal prosecution.
“I have been screaming from the rooftop, but a lot of people don’t know we exist as an agency,” said Schrage.
She warned that small, rural towns are easy targets for criminals.
“In some of the bedroom communities, people are a little more complacent. The criminals are not from Litchfield County, they’re coming in and looking for communities that are less savvy” about check fraud.
While check fishing is an age-old crime, it has been surging since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, said postal officials.
The USPS defines check fishing as a line, often with a sticky end, typically rodent glue traps, lowered into a postal box to snag letters and fished back out.
Fraudsters ditch all but the checks, which are then “washed” by changing the payee names, and often the dollar amounts, by removing the ink using chemical agents.
However, in Young’s case, his check was not washed, but completely reprinted with the bank routing number, check number, dollar amount and signature onto a different background.
After about a week of waiting for the check to reach its destination, Young said he went to NBT to void the missing check, only to find out that the $3,884 check had cleared in his account.
According to a recent report by the federal Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, check fraud at depository institutions more than tripled between 2018 and 2022, up 201.2% between those years.
While fishing for checks is a lucrative catch for criminals, it is a nightmare for banks, said Steven Cornell, president and CEO of National Iron Bank (NIB), which has a branch in the Cornwall Bridge section of Cornwall.
Cornell confirmed a “big uptick” in customers from Cornwall reporting check fraud.
“We resolve every one of them very quickly. We go back to all the banks and work with them to get the money back, and except for the big banks, most are very good about it.”
Cornell explained that the Cornwall Bridge branch manager has devoted countless hours helping customers close out breached accounts and opening new ones.
He said it is frustrating that the postal service is unable to secure mail at the expense of the banks:
“It takes a lot of time for us to do this, but there is nothing we can do but resolve it for our customers. They’re doing the right things by using the mail and paying their bills, and then this happens to them. It’s a terrible situation.”
Cornell said one way for customers to deter fraud is to switch from using checks to utilizing the bank’s secure electronic bill-pay system or debit cards. “Everybody who has moved to bill-pay is happy with it.”
Those who can’t part with checks are advised by the USPS to write in permanent ink, which can’t be erased as it penetrates the paper’s fibers.
Young said it could be months before he recoups his loss, but that’s not his main concern.
What he does worry about is that until the blue boxes are secure, his neighbors run the risk of scammers emptying their bank accounts.
Young said he has taken it upon himself to tape laminated warning signs to the Cornwall Bridge USPS collection box, but they are taken down as fast as he posts them.
“Meanwhile, people are putting checks in that box today. It’s that complacency that drives me crazy.”
LAKEVILLE — Rhys V. Bowen, 65, of Foxboro, Massachusetts, died unexpectedly in his sleep on Sept. 15, 2025. Rhys was born in Sharon, Connecticut, on April 9, 1960 to Anne H. Bowen and the late John G. Bowen. His brother, David, died in 1979.
Rhys grew up at The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, where his father taught English. Attending Hotchkiss, Rhys excelled in academics and played soccer, basketball, and baseball. During these years, he also learned the challenges and joys of running, and continued to run at least 50 miles a week, until the day he died.
In 1982 after graduating summa cum laude from Harvard College, Rhys returned to Hotchkiss to teach biology, where he met his wife of 35 years, Rebecca (Becky) Snow. After two years of teaching, he worked at a research field site in Borneo, then went on to the University of California, Davis where he earned a PhD in Animal Behavior in 1995.
Rather than follow an academic tenure track, Rhys preferred the solitary focus of field ornithology, and he spent several decades researching the ecology of bird species in California and on Cape Cod and the Islands. Rhys believed passionately in supporting biodiversity through habitat preservation. His proudest achievements, therefore, came through his work for the Lakes Region Conservation Trust, in New Hampshire, where he served on committees and the Board of Trustees for twenty years, including three years as Chair.
Deeply intellectual and curious, Rhys learned Homeric Greek so he could read The Odyssey and The Iliad in their original language. An amateur Melville scholar, he would wax poetic about reading Moby-Dick for the umpteenth time.Rhys’s spirit was filled by the performing arts. Concerts by the Handel and Haydn Society and Boston Early Music Festival often brought tears to his eyes, while Boston Bluegrass Union shows delivered toe-tapping fidgetiness.
Rhys will be missed by his wife, Becky Snow, his mother, Anne Bowen, extended family, friends, and anyone who had the pleasure of knowing him.
A service will be held at The Hotchkiss School chapel on Saturday, Nov. 15, 2025 at 1 p.m..
In honor of Rhys’s memory, donations can be made to the Lakes Region Conservation Trust.
LAKEVILLE — Kelsey K. Horton, 43, a lifelong area resident, died peacefully on Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025, at Norwalk Hospital in Norwalk, Connecticut, following a courageous battle with cancer. Kelsey worked as a certified nursing assistant and administrative assistant at Noble Horizons in Salisbury, from 1999 until 2024, where she was a very respected and loved member of their nursing and administrative staff.
Born Oct. 4, 1981, in Sharon, she was the daughter of W. Craig Kellogg of Southern Pines, North Carolina, and JoAnne (Lukens) Tuncy and her husband Donald of Millerton, New York. Kelsey graduated with the class of 1999 from Webutuck High School in Amenia and from BOCES in 1999 with a certificate from the CNA program as well. She was a longtime member of the Lakeville United Methodist Church in Lakeville. On Oct. 11, 2003, in Poughkeepsie, New York, she married James Horton. Jimmy survives at home in Lakeville. Kelsey loved camping every summer at Waubeeka Family Campground in Copake, and she volunteered as a cheer coach for A.R.C. Cheerleading for many years. Kelsey also enjoyed hiking and gardening in her spare time and spending time with her loving family and many dear friends.
In addition to her husband and parents, Kelsey is survived by her two beloved children, Hunter Horton and Aryanna Horton, both of Lakeville; a step-brother, Jason Tuncy of East Hartford, Connecticut; her mother-in-law, Frances “Fran” Horton and her brother-in-law, Benjamin D. Horton III and his wife Penny of Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, and their son, Alec, and several aunts, uncles, cousins and many dear friends. She was predeceased by her father-in-law, Benjamin D. Horton, Jr. in 2017.
There are no calling hours. A Celebration of Life will take place on Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025, from 11 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Millerton American Legion Post # 178, Route 44, Millerton, NY 12546. A time to celebrate Kelsey and share stories and memories. Memorial contributions may be made to The Jane Lloyd Fund. Please make checks payable to Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation (please note in memo line, The Jane Lloyd Fund) and mail to: Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, 800 N. Main Street, Sheffield, MA 01257.
To send an online condolence to the family, flowers to the service or to plant a tree in Kelsey’s memory, please visit www.conklinfuneralhome.com
Arrangements have been entrusted to the Scott D. Conklin Funeral Home, 37 Park Avenue, Millerton, NY 12546.
SHARON — On Sept. 27, Eliot Warren Brown was shot and killed at age 47 at his home in New Orleans, Louisiana, in a random act of violence by a young man in need of mental health services. Eliot was born and raised in Sharon, Connecticut, and attended Indian Mountain School and Concord Academy in Massachusetts. He graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He and his wife Brooke moved to New Orleans to answer the call for help in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and fell in love with the city.
In addition to his wife Brooke, Eliot leaves behind his parents Malcolm and Louise Brown, his sisters Lucia (Thaddeus) and Carla (Ruairi), three nephews, and extended family and friends spread far and wide.
Normally at this point one might list some interests, but in Eliot’s case, it’s easier to list what he wasn’t interested in: watching sports.
Eliot made a living as a fine craftsman and carpenter, but at heart he was an artist. He was well versed in music, painting, literature, biking, travel, Mardi Gras costumes, poker, pranks, street performance and on and on and on.Having previously hiked the entire Camino de Santiago in Spain and Portugal, he recently achieved another dream of summiting the highest stratovolcano in North America.
Eliot’s creative ability was astounding. His creations were designed to bring joy to others. He didn’t seek recognition or praise, and a large part of his work was anonymous. Pieces of art would appear in the community, encouraging people to think, connect and enjoy.
From the precociously funny and determinedly defiant boy that grew up in the Northwest corner of Connecticut, Eliot grew into a brilliant, gentle souled, boundlessly creative, ever mischievous, perpetually scraggly, and astoundingly wise and caring man who made an indelible impact on those who were lucky to have him in their lives.
In honor of Eliot, please consider making donations to organizations that work to end gun violence, support the arts, or provide mental health services. A service will be held at the Congregational Church in Salisbury on Sunday Oct. 26 at 2 p.m.
SHARON — Randall “Randy” Osolin passed away on Sept. 25, 2025, at the age of 74. He was born on Feb. 6, 1951, in Sharon, Connecticut to the late Ramon (Sonny) and Barbara (Sandmeyer) Osolin.
He was a dedicated social worker, a natural athlete, a gentle friend of animals, an abiding parish verger, an inveterate reader, and an estimable friend and neighbor. He was a kind-hearted person whose greatest joy was in helping someone in need and sharing his time with his family and good friends.
He was the beloved husband of Karen LaChance Osolin; the loving brother of Bruce Osolin and the late Gail Osolin Leo; the devoted uncle of Kyle and Andrew Osolin and Taylor LaChance; the brother-in-law of Debra LaChance; and the cousin of Brenda Curran, Jay Pickering and Audra Salazar.
To honor Randy’s memory, do a good deed for another or send a donation to the Little Guild, 258 Sharon-Goshen Road, West Cornwall, CT 06796. The Kenny Funeral Home has care of arrangements.