James Cartwright, A USPS Employee, Stole Mail to Buy Gas

The James Cartwright story

Money Blunders is a section of the blog dedicated to ways NOT to make money. Here’s a perfect example of how you shouldn’t start your sidle hustle endeavors.

So, there’s this guy named James Cartwright, 51 years old, working for the U.S. Postal Service. Now, you’d think someone handling people’s mail would be all about trust and responsibility, right? Well… not exactly in this case.

Back in August 2025, Clayton police get a call about a missing gift card and some shady mail tampering. Turns out, our man Cartwright didn’t just “borrow” someone’s mail. He went full-on sticky fingers, swiping a gift card and then using it like it was his personal debit card.

And what did he splurge on? On gas. Not even something cool; just filling up at a Speedway gas station. Honestly, that’s probably the most depressing “shopping spree” I’ve ever heard of.

Police eventually tracked it back to him, realized he was on Uncle Sam’s payroll with USPS, and slapped him with some serious charges: felony obtaining property by false pretenses, felony larceny by an employee, and even misdemeanor larceny for good measure. Basically, he collected the full “congratulations, you messed up” package.

And here’s the kicker: This might not be the end of it. The investigation’s still going, and they’re digging deeper with USPS to see if Cartwright helped himself to any other people’s mail. So yeah, not a good look for him.

If you’re going to start a side hustle, maybe don’t make it stealing gift cards from people’s birthday cards and cashing them in for a tank of unleaded.

And folks, this is how NOT to make money from a side hustle. For actual ways to make good money, be sure to read other articles on the Listiller blog. And if you’re specifically into writing, the homepage also displays tons of jobs for content creators 🙂