Want to see how easy it is to have your identity stolen at a post office?

In 2006 alone more than 670,000 people had their identity stolen in America. The financial toll: $1.2 billion.

CBS 2 cameras recently went undercover to tell you about a scam many people don’t know about. It starts in your local post office, and right now there is nothing you can do to stop it.

An identity thief hijacked Steve Zuckerman’s name by stealing his mail, not from his mailbox in Great Neck, but by using a loophole in the U.S. postal system.

We went undercover, inside several area post offices, and found it couldn’t be easier.

"People lose their homes over stupidity like this," Zuckerman said.

The hidden cameras then showed something shocking.

CBS 2: "I want to put a change of address form in today. Do you need an ID for this?"

Postal worker: "No, you just fill this out and put in mailbox or give it to us."

CBS 2: "No ID?"

Postal workers: "No."

You heard right. You don’t need ID when you turn in a change of address card.

"It was about two weeks before I realized that my personal mail was not coming," Zuckerman said.

Where was it going? Nassau County Police said to a Brooklyn apartment on Ocean Avenue. An ID thief forged a change of address card — signature and all — diverting it there. The mail for his wife and kids still came, so he had no clue someone was swiping his.

CBS 2 decided to press a local post office employee on how they can be so lax about ID, but the worker said ID theft is not a problem, mostly because nobody would try to steal from the post office.

The worker was oblivious to the problem, even though she was working right across from a poster warning for ID theft. And at post office after post office it was more of the same.

CBS 2: "You don’t need ID?"

Postal worker: "No, no."

Al Weissmann is Postal Inspector. He said look at the numbers, only 100 out of the 45 million change of address cards submitted last year wound up having the possibility of being fraud. That’s of little comfort to those who have been victimized. Their security? Weissmann said it’s your signature on the card, but only after someone has been scammed.

"We don’t see that there’s flaws in the system," Weissmann said. "The signature should match the customer signature. The bad guy has to know that we’re going to be checking signatures."

And he said within a week confirmation letters go out, but it took months for Zuckerman to get his.

"They did issue a move validation letter to him within two or three days," Weissmann said. "Why he didn’t receive it in a timely manner, that’s part of the investigation."

Within a couple of weeks, the thieves ultimately opened up nine credit cards in Zuckerman’s name, using those pre-approved applications, running up a credit limit of $90,000, affecting his ability to borrow money.

Identity theft experts said this is the time of year to really watch out because crooks like to steal mail around tax time when all your W2s and 1099s are floating through the postal system.

So what can you do to protect yourself?

*Keep tabs on your credit.

*Get credit reports every year from the major credit reporting bureaus — TransUnion, Equifax and Experian.

*Also, for a small fee, the bureaus will monitor your account, so if something pops into your credit report, they’ll notify you within a certain time period.

*There is also a new law allowing you to freeze your credit, shielding it and keeping anybody from extending credit or getting a credit card in your name.

Via CBS 2