It would seem a good thing that the U.S. Postal Service photographs and tracks the mail we should be receiving — unless you can see that mail online and it never arrives.

Through a service called Informed Delivery, Elizabeth Andersen could track mail that was intended for her husband but stolen by identity thieves.

The postal service in Dallas, Texas, was supposed to be returning that mail to the Andersens’ Urbandale home after it had been rerouted using a fraudulent change-of-address form.

Their carrier first alerted the couple that the mail likely was fraudulently forwarded in late September. The carrier told them a neighbor had the same thing happen.

But getting the Postal Service's giant bureaucracy to actually return their absconded mail became a frustrating odyssey that the Andersens are still trying to navigate.

The Andersens drawn-out saga is one of several across the country raising security questions about the U.S. Postal Service’s mail-forwarding service.

Equifax has faced congressional hearings, a Federal Trade Commission probe, civil suits and a major public tongue-lashing for failing to fix known software flaws.

The credit company's lapses provided hackers with a trove of information about as many as 145.5 million Americans. Another hack was reported this week.

However, with little more than a form and a fake signature, identity thieves can gain access to some of that same information by simply rerouting your mail.

The process has remained largely unchanged, even as identity theft has become the leading problem reported by consumers nationally.

This month, a Sacramento, California, man was sentenced to three years and eight months in prison for a mail-diversion scam.

Norman Thompson, 36, was ordered to pay $38,086.75 in restitution for conspiring in 2016 and 2017 with co-defendants Joshua Yadon and Latomba Bishop to obtain credit cards, checks, credit reports, and merchandise in other peoples’ names.

The three filled out fraudulent mail-forwarding requests and vacation holds with the postal service to divert mail from the victims’ true addresses.

Found mail lost again

When the Andersens discovered what had happened to them, they immediately went to the Urbandale post office to report the theft and cancel the forwarding order.

They also called an 800 number for the national office of the U.S. Postal Inspector and the number of the Dallas-Richland post office, where the mail was being forwarded.

The postal inspector said their information would become part of an ongoing investigation. A Texas post office employee promised to return the mail.

“She indicated she had some of our mail … and stated she would collect all the forwarded mail and send it back to Iowa as soon as the forwarding order was canceled,” Elizabeth Andersen said.

Through Informed Delivery, the couple could see at least 19 pieces of mail had not made it home. Among them: statements on eight financial or credit accounts that exposed them to further risk.

They also learned the thieves had already applied for at least one credit card using their personal information.

“There are 19 pieces of forwarded mail that we can see, but there is evidence that more mail was forwarded that we know nothing about,” Elizabeth said. “We cannot even guess what that would include.”

In late September, Elizabeth did an interview with WHO-TV about the mail theft. Afterward, Des Moines’ postal inspector was able to stop the fraudulent forwarding, but not much else happened.

“We have since learned that the local postal employees are not allowed to call the local postal inspector directly," she said. "They are only allowed to call the national 800 number that I had already called twice, and nobody had notified the local guy.”

Which brought Elizabeth Andersen to Reader's Watchdog. She wants to know what the U.S. Postal Service is doing to foil online change-of-address scams, since they are so easy to carry out.

“And where is our mail?” she asked. “How do we get it back?”

Mail still missing

Elizabeth says she and her husband were led to believe the forwarding would be stopped by Oct. 2.

They asked the local postal inspector to have the Texas post office send back the forwarded mail it had collected.

When they hadn’t received the mail by Oct. 5, Elizabeth called the local postal inspector, asking for follow-up and a tracking number. She also called the Texas post office.

After a long wait, she learned no mail had been sent back to Iowa.

On Oct. 6, Elizabeth emailed the local postal inspector with clear instructions to get the forwarded mail sent out that day for delivery the next day.

“I received a very unpleasant phone call back from him, but he did finally tell me he had done what I asked and he gave me a tracking number," she said. "The local postal inspector finally made the Des Moines area postmaster aware of our situation at this point."

A package from Texas arrived Oct. 7 but contained only three letters from the bank about the fraudulent credit card and a Sports Illustrated magazine.

“All the returned pieces were forwarded to Texas on Sept. 27, so they were some of the last mail that went to Texas," she said. "None of the mail containing our financial information was returned."

On Oct. 8, they filed an online complaint with the Office of the Inspector General, division of employee misconduct.

The couple also froze their credit to stop further applications from going through.

“Everybody we have talked to has been surprised at how little assistance we have been able to get,” she said. “The potential damage, if our missing mail is in the wrong hands, could last a very long time.”

To order a change of address online or by phone, the Postal Service requires a credit or debit card that matches your name and charges the card $1 to verify your identity with the issuing bank.

But with a paper form, you need only a signature.

The postal service does mail a "move validation letter" to the original address with instructions to call 800-275-8777 with problems and to notify the local post office.

But scammers such as Thompson in California can get around that by putting a hold on mail delivery.

Late this week, the Andersens heard back from Alexis Page-Richardson, the head of customer service at the Richland station, who contended the Andersens had received all the mail retrieved in Texas.

My own attempts to find answers were met with much buck-passing.

Stacy St. John, a Kansas City communications specialist for the postal service, first told me to contact the U.S. Postal Inspector Service. When no one would return her emails or mine, she sent me a pat response to my questions:

"The U.S. Postal Service considers the security and sanctity of mail as one of its highest priorities … The rate of suspicious transactions reported by customers is less than 1/10 of 1 percent and are often related to activity unrelated to criminal compromise. We are continuously implementing security enhancements, though not seen by the general public, to enhance the security of our change-of-address process."

When I responded with more specific questions, I received an out-of-office reply. Jim O'Hara, the local postal inspector, never returned my calls, although internal communications indicated to St. John that he had.

St. John did encourage consumers to use Informed Delivery to track mail, retrieve mail daily and report any suspicious activity to the federal law enforcement arm, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Andersen, meanwhile, did get a little good news by Friday from Mike Vinzant, who works for the inspection service.

He said he had obtained the credit-card information for the person who forwarded the Andersens' mail and was on the hunt for the culprit in Dallas.

Vinzant said he at least was doing what he could to have all their mail returned.

Perhaps a new postman's creed is warranted: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor shifty mail thief …"

Lee Rood's Reader's Watchdog column helps Iowans get answers and accountability from public officials, the justice system, businesses and nonprofits. Contact her atlrood@dmreg.com, 515-284-8549 on Twitter @leerood or at Facebook.com/readerswatchdog.