Mail Fraud: Federal Crime Overview

It was all the way back in 1872 that the crime of mail fraud first received federal status. What this means it that it was upgraded from a simple state level crime to something far more serious. It carries with it all of the penalties of a federal crime when committed. This means the punishments can be more severe, and the investigation can involve federal agents. A simple definition of mail fraud is essentially using the United States postal service in a manner that is meant to defraud someone out of their property. It is actually something that happens every day in the country, although it is not often reported on.

What Mail Fraud Looks Like

The concept of mail fraud can come in many different forms. There are telemarketing scams, employment fraud, social security fraud, sweepstakes frauds, and so on. These are all things that can come through the mail which may actually be illegal depending on the circumstances. Sadly, it is often the case that the elderly are the targets of such fraud. They may not have the cognitive ability to realize that they are being defrauded, or they may just be extra trusting of people that they should not trust. Either way, they are frequent targets of such actions.

Examples Of Employment Fraud

Employment fraud can fall under the umbrella of mail fraud if it is conducted through the mail. This means that things such as fake "work from home" opportunities or mystery shopper scams would fall into this category in a lot of situations. There are flyers and information that comes through the mail all the time that claims to offer the ability to be your own boss and make great money doing it. These claims may even go so far as to say that you have the potential to earn a huge amount of money in a very short period of time. In those circumstances, you can pretty well assume you are being scammed. That would be what employment fraud as a part of mail fraud looks like.

Fraud Against The Elderly

As previously mentioned, the elderly are frequently the targets of fraud. They often have greater sums of wealth or at least access to some government programs that scammers would like to steal away from them. This means that scams against the elderly are all too common, and they often prove successful at some point for far too many. This might look like someone calling or sending mail to an elderly person asking them to send in personal information in order to receive extra benefits from the government. Of course, those benefits are not really there, and the person on the other end of the correspondence is just trying to steal the identity of their target. When they are successful, they can walk away with a lot of money or other valuables by just pretending to be someone that they are not.

Penalties For This Crime

The legal penalties for mail fraud can be quite severe depending upon the circumstances. However, those penalties are often not enforced to the maximum extent that they could be. While the courts are allowed to punish someone with as much as twenty or thirty years in jail for this crime, they rarely go that far. Some extreme real-life cases have seen penalties of eleven years and three months in prison, but that was considered an extreme amount of time. The people behind that incident had defrauded many individuals, and they had made a lot of money for themselves doing it. Still, this crime should be taken very seriously, and anyone who feels that they are a victim of it should report it immediately.

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