Lyn Plummer and her son went on a spur-of-the-moment holiday for a week and forgot that a new debit card and pin number were set to arrive.

They came home to find no mail waiting for them.

A few days later Ms Plummer’s son received a call from the bank to tell him his loan repayment had been declined for insufficient funds.

Ms Plummer said he had just been paid so there should have been enough money, but in fact there was only a few dollars.

They approached the bank and found out that about $500 had been stolen from the account.

While the bank has committed to refunding the money, Ms Plummer said it will be 10 working days before then.

Ms Plummer said that even though her mailbox had a lock on it, it was too small for envelopes to fit inside, so she believed the robber plucked the letters out of the opening.

Since the incident, Ms Plummer has purchased a larger mailbox.

But she wanted to use what happened to her to alert others to be careful with their mail.

“It just should not happen,” she said.

“You put trust into people not to touch your mail.”

Ms Plummer said she now runs straight out when she hears the mailman.

“You shouldn’t have to do that,” she said.

Central Hunter crime manager Detective Inspector Mitch Dubojski said while he hasn’t heard of many of these cases in the local area recently, they were definitely not unusual.

Detective Inspector Dubojski said that it was more common in metropolitan areas with unit blocks.

He encouraged people to be prepared when going away, by getting others to collect their mail for them or requesting for it to be left at the post office.

Anyone with information about this incident should contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.