When I am dealing with time sensitive issues, I always send correspondence via certified mail. I figure it is good insurance if things ever go wrong. In any case, if the other party refuses to accept the mail, is this proof of intent to deceive? I sent a letter to an insurance company two weeks ago-the Post Office has no proof of receipt-who is to blame?
We’re talking about the US here? US Postal Service?
The advantage with Certified Mail is that the PO can tell you what’s going on with it.
They say it’s delivered? And that they have no proof? Or that it was refused and is being returned?
As you are sending it to a company and not a person, I doubt it’s fraud.
Completely possible nobody on duty at the time of delivery was authorized to sign for things- it happens.
I’m never home when mail delivery occurs. If the mailman leaves a slip asking me to stop by the post office to sign for something, I generally ignore it. No fraud intended, I’m just busy and prioritize.
I don’t see how my not accepting a package could be construed as fraud. If I refuse to answer my phone, would that be fraud? No.
Absolutely not. Tenants do it all the time when they get notices from landlords about past due rent.
Probably you. If you send a certified letter to an insurance company and nobody has signed for it, there’s a 99% chance you sent it to the wrong address.
This is what my state, Ohio, codifies about refusal of service, and it states nothing about refusal being a crime;
RULE 4.6 Process: Limits; Amendment; Service Refused; Service Unclaimed
(C) United States certified or express mail or commercial carrier service refused. If attempted service of process by United States certified or express mail or by commercial carrier service within or outside the state is refused, and the certified or express mail envelope or return of the commercial carrier shows such refusal, or the return of the person serving process by personal service within or outside the state or by residence service within the state specifies that service of process has been refused, the clerk shall forthwith notify the attorney of record or, if there is no attorney of record, the party at whose instance process was issued and enter the fact and method of notification on the appearance docket.
Now, under the Rules of Evidence, can that be admitted at trial/moving papers it was refused and considered as guilt? I do not think so!!
How does certified mail work on a large entity like an insurance company? I assume that such a company gets literally tons of mail, mass sorted and delivered in bulk. Does a driver drop off ten sacks of mail at the loading dock, and then say, “Oh, I have one more envelope that needs your signature”? It seems like the special handling would present several failure points along the delivery chain where the letter could fall through a crack.
It seems to me that if you paid to send it certified, and the Post Office says that they delivered it but have no proof, no signature from a recipient,* then they, the Post Office, are to blame. They have failed to live up to their contract with you. The chances are that it has not really been delivered at all. It may have been lost. You should send the letter again (and you ought to be able to reclaim your original fee, or even get compensation, but I do not know what what your chances of actually getting anything would be.)
It seems unlikely to me that an institution like and insurance company would refuse to sign for a certified letter. But if they did, the Post Office ought not to have let them have it, and I presume that they should return it to you, with an explanation.
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*It is not entirely clear to me that this is what you are saying has happened. If not, I think you need to explain yourself more clearly.
Sure, but if the company loses some important document, that’s their problem right? The company’s representative has signed to accept delivery, so it’s up to the company at that point to deal with the delivery appropriately.
I mean, I can’t say “Well, yes I signed for that delivery, but then I put the envelope down somewhere and can’t find it, so you can’t hold me legally responsible for responding.” Neither can companies.
I think that’s why companies have registered agents; because the regular mailroom isn’t set up to process legal documents.
I think what the OP is trying to say is: If you send something certified mail to someone, they refuse delivery, and then later claim that they never received what you sent, is that fraud? For instance, if you need to make a payment by a certain date to avoid forclosure and the bank deliberately refuses to accept the payment in order to forclose. I don’t know if “fraud” would be the right word, but I’m pretty sure the courts would consider that a “good faith” attempt to make payment and would refuse to allow the forclosure.
Delivery refusal can be tracked but to find that out, sending it certified isn’t sufficient. Send it certified with delivery confirmation.
I hope it isn’t fraud. I have a personal policy to never sign for registered mail. I just let it go sit and the Post Office until it gets returned. I assume that whatever it is has the receipt for the sender’s benefit and not mine so I just refuse to play that game. They will have to find a more civil way to get the message to me if it is really that important. I have no idea what most of them were ever for.
Do you (or anyone here) regularly get certified or registered mail? I don’t know that I ever have. Anyone who here gets it regularly, and actually receives it, so they know what it was for?
I’ve sent “final notice” type bills certified in the past.
A friend set up a Doing Business As company specifically to use for this purpose. The company name is something like “Prize Distribution Notification, LLC”. He improved compliance considerably.
No, but you are generally entitled to a presumption that the recipient had notice of whatever you were sending them. Law firms generally send anything that is goingt to an individual both certified and regular, since you can’t refuse service of the latter.
I assume failure to accept certified mail is just one more datapoint in any dispute.
Party A say “I’m not responsible for X - they failed to notify me appropriately.”
Party B says " we sent you registered mail - you refused it."
Party A might say " that’s not my address" and win that point if they can show they have a different address and B should have known. But if that was A’s address of record and they failed to accept delivery, then they don’t have grounds to complain “I was not notified”.
Courts are not stupid. they don’t hinge on “you have to put the letter in A’s hand or else you lose”.
(There’s likely a whole body of law on serving subpoenas etc. and what constitutes delivery there).
So short answer, refusing a delivery is not illegal, but it would certainly damage your case if you relied on active refusal of delivery as a reason to escape a legal consequence in some case.
Note that registered mail is not synonymous with certified mail. They’re different things.
From time to time I have to send certified mail out for legal reasons. After a certain amount of attempts (3 IIRC) it comes back. It’ll also get returned if you just flat out refuse it when the mailman tries to get you to sign for it. Either way, in the cases that I’ve had to deal with, NOT accepting it is just as good as accepting it since all I had to do was prove to the judge or detective that I attempted to make contact.
That’s why they can’t call you or send a regular letter, they need to be able to prove they attempted to make contact.
FTR, I’m not saying this is the case, just an example, but maybe you should be signing for them. For example, when I send them out it’s basically to tell someone that they bounced a check and that they need to come in and take care of it or it’s going to get turned over to the police. If it comes back unsigned/refused, the police take it and the person gets a ticket for writing a bad check. Granted I usually call before I do that, I’m just saying that often times those kinds of letters precede legal action and since ignoring it can be the same as accepting it, maybe it’s worth finding out what’s going on. But since you’re going to say that nothing has ever come of it, I suppose it’s working out for you.