I saw a show awhile back in which a man dropped a letter in a public mailbox but then immediately thought better of it; he decided he didn’t want the recipient to see it after all. He waited around for hours until the mailman came to empty the box, and asked if he could have the letter back. The mailman looked at him oddly, but asked him to describe the letter and then asked to see ID to be sure he was the person whose name appeared in the return-address spot. Then the mailman rooted around in the bag, found the letter and handed it over.
Did the mailman (sorry, postal carrier) act within the bounds of the law, or must a letter, once mailed, go straight to its destination? Does this sort of thing happen often?
I seem to recall (checking for cite now) that you can send a form into the Postmaster to ask him to “stop delivery” of a piece of mail. IIRC, the form takes alot of time to get into the system, far longer than the standard 1-2 days for delivery of a local first-class letter, but nevertheless there is (i think) a mechanism to do that.
No clue on the postman’s end, though - the USPS may have a policy that allows it. Especially if he verifies the return address with your driver’s license…
so it is most clearly “ok” to recall mail once deposited with the USPS. Again, though, I don’t know what their personnel policies are regarding recall of mail absent that form and done right at the mailbox.
In all fairness, my thought about this was “Ah, the wonders of our modern post office.” The fact that you can get something delivered so quickly is pretty impressive.