First, it was an email from a credit card company confirming an application that Renee Rosado had not submitted.

“They say, ‘Oh you applied for a credit card,’” Rosado said.

Then a suspiciously empty mailbox.

“Well, I hadn’t gotten mail for a while,” Rosado said.

Rosado suspected the two were connected and someone was tampering with her identity.

“This is not a small thing, it’s a big thing,” Rosado said. “It’s fraud.”

But how? A call to the local post office connected the dots. The trail pointed to her mail.

“And they said, ‘You put a hold on it,’” Rosado said. “And I said, ‘No I did not.’”

The post office produced a mail hold request. Someone – not Rosado – submitted the form on the postal service website. That person’s intent was then clear to Rosado. The thief applied for a credit card using her name, held her mail until the card would arrive, then planned to planned to pick up the mail at the post office, where the soon-to-be stolen credit card would be waiting. Read more