Metered Postage Question

Factual Questions
1

I recently signed up for stamps.com and I really like being able to print postage directly onto envelopes eliminating the need for stamps. One of the things I am required to provide is the date, which I can set to pretty much whatever I want.

I remember reading somewhere that you MUST set the postage date to the date you will be mailing the letter. Not the day before, and not the day after. In most cases I know when I am going to drop off the letters so I can set the date precisely, but sometimes I’m not 100% sure so I set the date in the future in hopes that it doesn’t really matter that much.

So what’s the straight dope here?

  1. If I mail something a day or two before the postage date is that going to a be a problem?

  2. If I mail something a day or two after the postage date is that going to be a problem?

  3. Why does it really matter since I pay for the postage when it is printed, not when it goes through the post office?

2

Some things like tax returns are supposed to be postmarked by a certain date. So if there’s a rule, I imagine it’s for some reason like this. I have see metered mail that was canceled. I was told once by a postal employee that they canceled metered mail if the date was wrong. I don’t know for sure they did, nor if they did if they still do so.

3

We had a mean postal carrier at my last job who would refuse mail posted the day before. We just dropped it in the post box around the corner and none of it ever came back.

4

I’ve had occasions where I had an earlier date on the meter strip, and the post office asked me to return with a $0.00 strip showing today’s date. I did so and it worked.

Just a data point.

5

Officially, mail is supposed to be metered on the day it is dropped, but enforcement depends on someone at the P.O. noticing and giving a shit and deciding to do something about it. I’ve been sending metered mail for more than 16 years, and although I generally do mail it the same day I meter it, I’ve probably dropped mail late a few dozen times. I think I may have had pieces returned for that reason once in all that time.

So IME the chances of getting caught on any given occasion are pretty low.

One reason the PO doesn’t want you to do this is that it makes their delivery performance look worse than it really was. For the converse reason, I’ve been told that they won’t return mail that is post-dated, since it makes them look better, not worse.

6

I hadn’t thought about that. Thanks!