MailmanDave
17 Years Experience
Long Island, NY
Male, 43
I am a City Letter Carrier for the US Postal Service in NY. I've been a city letter carrier for over 17 years and it is the best job I've ever had. I mostly work 5 days per week (sometimes includes a Saturday) and often have the opportunity for overtime, which is usually voluntary. The route I deliver has about 350 homes and I walk to each of their doors to deliver the mail. Please keep in mind that I don't have authority to speak for the USPS, so all opinions are solely mine, not my employer.
They might. If you are on a rural delivery route, I believe it is part of the carrier's job to mail items for the customers (at the customer's expense, of course) and deliver them stamps if they request them and pay for it. If you live on a city delivery route, it's probably up to the individual carrier if they will fulfill your request or not. I believe you can purchase stamps online and they'll be sent to you or there is an option for stamps by mail. In the latter option, you fill out a form and enclose a check and the USPS will deliver your stamps in a couple of days. I don't see any of those options used too often where I deliver mail but I can't speak for other post offices.
Try this URL:
https://store.usps.com/store/
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Maybe for a day or so to see if anybody in the PO knows where that address is. Being that I deliver mail to the same neighborhood each day I know if a piece of mail has a valid address on it or not. It's possible if there is a replacement letter carrier delivering mail on a certain day and they can't find an address they will bring back the mail and then possibly the regular letter carrier on the route or somebody else would know where the address is. More often than not when mail has an address that can't be found (or the address doesn't even exist), we will endorse the mail as "NSN" which means "No Such Number" and it will be returned to the sender. The USPS has a national database of all valid addresses so we usually know at the PO if an address exists or not.
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If I were in motion, I'd safely pull over, put on my four-way flashers, and then get out to investigate. It's possible that my gas cap is hanging out the side of the LLV, the back gate isn't secure, or maybe I'm dragging something. It could also be something that I haven't thought of. If the motorist is still around I'd ask them what they are pointing out. If it seemed to be some type of phony diversion tactic, I'd try to get far away from the motorist pointing and then investigate safely.
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I wouldn't recommend it unless you put a stamp on the envelope. The reason I say this is because the mailbox is only supposed to be used for US Mail with proper postage. That being said, if you leave the envelope in the mailbox clearly marked for the recipient company or resident with no postage it's possible the letter carrier would notice it and just leave it in the mailbox. That is what I would do but I can't speak for another letter carrier who isn't paying attention and just takes an envelope that looks like it could be outgoing mail. If you put the payment envelope in the mailbox with the address and postage it could be taken as outgoing mail but you can rest assured it will get to the recipient within a couple of days as a regular piece of mail. If possible, could you find an alternate place to put the payment or pay electronically?
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I can't say for sure what should have happened with the check that was mailed to the wrong address. It is bad that the check was cashed by an unintended party. A letter carrier doesn't always know who lives at each address and there are many days where a replacement carrier or CCA (City Carrier Assistant) is delivering the mail. If I'm not sure that piece of mail should go the address on the envelope, I will likely deliver it anyway with a "?" written next to the name. Hopefully the resident at the address would put the envelope back in the mail if it doesn't belong to them and write "doesn't live here" on the outside.
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Jessica, I don't know what is legal or not about returning mail to the sender if not addressed properly but it seems that your letter carrier is taking this a bit too far by returning letters that don't match exactly the name on the mailbox. As long as the apartment # is correct and the name matches somewhat the mail should be delivered. I don't know if you want to leave a note saying "please deliver all mail that is addressed to my apartment # even if the name doesn't match exactly." As far as I know names don't need to match at all as long as there is an apt # and the recipient isn't rejecting the mail as "no longer lives here or person doesn't live here". Many carriers, especially substitute or CCA (city carrier assistants), just deliver the mail as addressed which is fine. I am a very detail-oriented letter carrier and always want to make the proper deliveries but would never return something for a spelling error. I would return something sometimes if it is consistently mailed to an incorrect address. Again, the address is the most important piece of information on a piece of mail, not necessarily the name.
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If I were in motion, I'd safely pull over, put on my four-way flashers, and then get out to investigate. It's possible that my gas cap is hanging out the side of the LLV, the back gate isn't secure, or maybe I'm dragging something. It could also be something that I haven't thought of. If the motorist is still around I'd ask them what they are pointing out. If it seemed to be some type of phony diversion tactic, I'd try to get far away from the motorist pointing and then investigate safely.
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