Going Postal - USPS in the News!
November 21, 2008
Beware of
spoofed (soldier_name)@us.army.mil
From our Press Release today:
Military charity offers warnings about soldier email
scam and tips on holiday mailing.
Use of military email addresses is a
growing concern for group that serves military families,
returning injured soldiers and military case workers. Going
Postal takes on new meaning in mailing holiday packages to
the troops.
Sacramento, California November 20, 2008: Locally based
Patriotwatch.com (www.patriotwatch.com)
today is issuing an advisory to its nationwide network of
volunteers and allied organizations to be wary of
official-looking emails bearing soldier’s name, rank and @us.army.mil
return email address.
“Who wouldn’t want to help a deployed soldier making an
appeal for his family at home,” says David Jenest,
Operations Vice President for Patriot Defenders Network,
Inc., a California nonprofit public benefit corporation.
“Email is the chief means of receiving legitimate requests
by many grassroots charities around the country but other
caring citizens may not be equipped to recognize scams,” he
concluded.
Most email scams can be pretty obvious to even the novice
computer user while some are very deceptive. The true scam
artist is responsible for the proliferation of phishing
expeditions to find unwary recipients or to use their email
addresses.
“If Aunt Betsy sends you an appeal to help a wounded
soldier, you may want to check with her before clicking on a
link to make an online donation,” cautions Jenest.
Jenest and his groups are also concerned about a new
variation of the well publicized
Nigerian bank scam emails. The use of a soldier’s name and
rank first appeared in December, 2007, just before
Christmas. “The difference then made it more suspicious
simply because the sender used Yahoo and Google Mail
addresses with country codes from the UK or Hong Kong. The
appearance today of the “@us.army.mil” official military
address attached to a scam is a slap in the face of our
service members around the world and could hurt our efforts
here at home,” Jenest concluded.
The group is referring to an email appeal using the name and
email address of a SGT DAVE GODWIN [sgtgodwin2@us.army.mil].
The subject line states “Message from Iraq” giving the
impression the soldier and his “partner” Staff Sgt. Kenneth
Buff are deployed with the US Army. The message claims in
part:
A
lot of money in various currencies were discovered in
barrels at a farmhouse near one of saddams old palaces in
Tikrit in Iraq during an operation Conquest in Fallujah
north of Baghdad, and it was agreed by Staff Sgt. Kenneth
Buff and I that some part of this money be shared among both
of us before informing anybody about it since both of us saw
the money first. This is quite an illegal thing to do, but
well tell you what? no compensation can make up for the risk
we have taken with our lives in this hell hole, of which my
brother in-law was killed by a road side bomb last time.
The phony Sgt Godwin goes on to offer a piece of his share
to the unwitting recipient of his email.
Patriorwatch.com encourages recipients to report confirmed
fraudulent use of military addresses to the FBI Cyber Crimes
Unit.
PDN will post "how to"
information and links over the weekend to aid member and
visitors in spotting fraudulent emails and scams.
BLAST FROM THE PAST Mission Accomplished!
When you
visit the USPS
website,
you may be in for a surprise. Granted, out in middle America
where Postmaster Bob knows everyone in Littletown, USA this may
be painless. For most military destinations, you can do
everything online: Buy the postage, print the shipping label and
required US Customs forms and hand your box to you regular
letter carrier. Sounds simple enough, right? Beware of the
pitfalls. First, let see what the "Official USPS" website
has to say about the process:
Our troops look
forward to receiving your letters and packages. That’s why it’s
important to make sure your mail gets there, to the right
person, in the right place.
The Department of Defense has issued the following guidelines
for addressing your mail to military and civilian personnel
deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Use the service member’s
full name. The Department of Defense
cancelled the
Any Service Member program so mail must be addressed to
someone specific.
Include the unit and APO/FPO
(Air/Army Post Office or Fleet Post Office) address with the
nine-digit ZIP Code™ (if one is assigned).
Click-N-Ship® customers should be advised that the Postal
Service and the Military will continue to add and update valid
APO/FPO addresses for your online labels.
Include a return address.
For packages, print on one
side only with the recipient’s
address in the lower right portion. Or print a postage-paid
label online with
Click-N-Ship®, which will automatically standardize your
APO/FPO address if it has been added to our database. (Please
note that ZIP Codes 093XX and 964XX are currently unavailable
for electronic labels. We apologize for the inconvenience.)
ZIP Codes
093XX
Oh boy... now what? Oh, and what about that
required phone number and that Zip+4? Welcome to the
Twilight Zone of Going Postal.
Check back for more...
there breaking news on the horizon and the world may be flat
after all! In a conference call today (May 22nd) our USPS
Consumer Affairs District Office Manager arranged a conference
call with one of their IT technical support professionals to
clearly define our mission and the improvements needed to "Click
and Ship" to previously unavailable zip code in Iraq.
Congress Representative Matsui's staff will also receive updates
on USPS progress and we narrow the gap.
Problems resolved:
Click and ship works. I was able to hand
my care package with Click&Ship label and US Customs Form
attached to my letter carrier. It was received in Camp Bucca
about 10 days later.
Thanks to USPS. we even got special
shipping tubes made for Operation Postcard last year.
180
Giant Postcards/banners shipped daily to Iraq and Afghanistan. A
total of 14, 816 people signed them - an average of 926
signatures per day. Special Operation Postcards to our Wounded
Warrior here at home were shipped by USPS before Christmas.
We just completed this years state fair and shipping was donated
by USPS employees.
New
flat rate packaging was designed for comfort item shipping to
our troops. We're able to ship more for less. In stock
now!
November 21, 2008
