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.
Boo, I have never heard of this happening where somebody can reverse delivery on an item that has tracking. My inkling would be that this is not allowed even if it were possible. The only way you would get the letter back is if it was refused at the destination or the address was invalid. You could call 800-ASK-USPS or go to your local Post Office but I don't think that you will get a different answer. Upon further review I went to ehow.com where there is a column written with the title "How to Retrieve a Letter Already Mailed Through the Post Office". The column mentions a form called an application for recall of mail and the steps to fill it out. Also if you go to USPS.com and lookup Package Intercept that may help you as well. You have asked a good question as it got me to do a little research to learn that this service does exist for a fee. The fee looks to be 11.50 per piece. Thanks for writing.
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Linda, generally if a letter carrier sees a new name at an address he will deliver the mail without any notifcation from the new resident. This is especially true if the letter carrier knows that a previous owner or tenant has moved out. If you are moving in with someone, the letter carrier also should be delivering the mail anyway. Sometimes if I see a new name at an address and I'm not sure if it is correct I will put a question mark next to the name on the envelope and deliver the mail. If I don't get the mail returned with a message on it saying "person doesn't live here", then I will know that the new name at that address is valid. That being said, it wouldn't hurt to leave a notice by your mailbox or to tell the letter carrier that your name is valid at the new address. I don't think it is necessary, but I know I would never mind getting a personal confirmation of a new resident having moved in somewhere. Thanks so much for writing.
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Mischa, I deleted one of your questions because it came up as a duplicate on this website. When we return from our routes, we put all of the outgoing (collected) mail in a dispatch area usually divided into flat, letters, parcels, priority, metered, stamped, etc. With regards to the prepaid shipping labels which is usually called Parcel Select Return Service I put the item in a separate area and our dispatch clerk knows what to do with it. I don't know when it is scanned at our post office. I would suspect that the package would be scanned at least in 1-2 days. Some packages which are being sent back as a return are transported by a 3rd party company that picks up those packages at our post office. Other packages are transported by the USPS back to the company where the package is being returned. I know when I pick it up from a customer as an outgoing return package I do not scan the item at all. I hope this helps but please keep checking USPS.com to track your package for any scans.
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I'm sorry but it's unlikely that you would be able to get your paycheck before regular mail delivery on Monday. It is likely that your post office closed and may not have anybody there until early on Monday AM. Even on Monday AM, it's not likely that your mail will be available (or that you'd find anybody willing or allowed to help). I don't know where your post office is so I can't speak to the specifics of your situation. I am just speaking in generalities of what I think would be the situation at most post offices. My question to you is: How do you know your pay check is at the post office? Most post offices deliver whatever mail has arrived on the same day that it arrives. What I mean is that mail that is processed overnight at a regional sorting facility arrives at our local post office by apprx 730AM and then is all sent out for delivery the same day it arrives. Do you have a PO Box where the paycheck would be and your local post office has restricted hours for access (i.e. not a 24 hour lobby).
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Regarding your question Joseph, I don't known what the official rule is on this. If I were the letter carrier who was collecting the mail from the blue collection box and you approached me with appropriate ID and the letter was easy to find, I'd return it to you. I can imagine some other carriers not being as accommodating to your request either because they don't want to help you or because we may not technically be allowed to. It's also not always so easy to find the person collecting the mail unless you are watching the mailbox for awhile because letter carrier doesn't always come at the time printed on the collection box schedule label. The time printed on the label is the earliest time of the collection but it could be hours before the mail is actually collected.
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Youre welcome. I try to give put proper information and not make up something if I don't know the answer (which I have learned on this website is actually many things.) The TV preachers don't get free postage at all, nor does any non-profit organization. These charities or organized religions register with the IRS as non-profits and then can mail with the USPS at a reduced rate. These mailings have to be prepared in a certain way and be in a certain quantity. Also, these mailings aren't given any preferential treatment as a first-class letter or magazine would be given. It is true that many non-profits (including the TV preachers you speak of) are known to make plent if money, have high cost structures and pay plenty of money to those at the top. The USPS doesn't judge that when issuing a non-profit mailing permit. They just look for the proper paperwork to be a non-profit and also make sure the mailings are prepared accordingly. Thank you for that thought-provoking question.
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I don't know the answer to this question. In the PO where I work, the supervisors manage when bulk mail is distributed for delivery and we will deliver it on that day unless there is some extenuating circumstance why we can't. I notice that most bulk mail that comes to our PO is usually delivered within 3-4 days, often earlier. 10 days seems like an awfully long time for bulk mail to be sitting around no matter the time sensitivity or not. When your mailing is given to a BMEU (Bulk Mail Entry Unit), do they have any straight answer either? I agree that this is poor service if you can't get any range of time or reason why it's taking so long to be delivered. I do acknowledge that bulk mailings do get put to the bottom of the list as far as priority of which class of mail to deliver, but there isn't a huge amount of First-Class Mail and Periodical mail to go through that a bulk mailing should take so long. I'm just speaking from the perspective of where I work and can't really comment on the operations of another post office.
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