Things have been going quite well for the Peyton Manning, led Denver Broncos this year, however, recently the Denver Bronco cheerleaders became victims of identity theft by way of a scheme that could happen to anyone.  Law enforcement officials in Denver indicted two people who are alleged to be part of an organized identity theft ring that stole mail from the mailboxes of people looking for checks, which they would then use to make counterfeit checks which they would then cash in order to access the accounts of the payers of the checks.   Checks mailed by the Denver Broncos to their cheerleaders were stolen from the mailboxes of the cheerleaders, used to make counterfeit checks and then cashed to provide funds to purchase drugs.

TIPS

It is very easy to obtain a perfectly legal software program that will create legitimate checks and this software can be misused to create counterfeit checks if the criminal has the bank information provided on actual checks of the companies whose checks they are counterfeiting.  For this reason, if you are paying your bills by way of a written, paper check that you are mailing, you should never put it in your home mailbox and lift the red flag.  Lifting the red flag, may give notice to your letter carrier that you have outgoing mail, but it also gives notice to your friendly neighborhood identity thief that there is mail that may be useful for him to steal.  Additionally, incoming mail with checks, credit card information or other information that can be used to make you a victim of identity theft is a quite risky unless you have a lock on your mailbox.