I just got a promotional mail envelope. There is a line above the address that reads “Postmaster please deliver between 07/20/16 - 07/22/16”. It has not post mark, as it has a business presorted message where the stamp or imprint would be.
Despite the fact that it arrived today, 7/22, I find it hard to believe that the USPS pays any attention to such a notation on an envelope. I would think the postal service would just process and deliver these envelopes in the normal fashion for whatever class of mail they belong to. In other words, you wouldn’t be able to write “please deliver between 08/29/16 - 08/31/16” on an envelope, stick in in the mailbox today, and expect it to be delivered at the end of August, would you?
I would assume this is just a marketing gimmick, to make it appear (to you) that there’s something special about what’s in the envelope. I doubt USPS pays any attention to it.
That is my thought, as well. Not as misleading as the envelopes that are made to look like official USPS or government mail, but I still assume it has no impact on processing and delivery. But I’d be interested in hearing from anybody who works for USPS.
Like the others here I think you’re right, though I don’t have a cite. My suspicion is that any message to “Postmaster” on an envelope is ignored by the Postal Service and is only there for some desired psychological effect on the recipient. But I too am interested in the facts about this.
Not my area of expertise, but I think this is what the USPS calls “bound printed matter”. You don’t just stick it in a mailbox. It has to be dropped off to the business mail location that issued the bound printed matter permit. It’s probably dropped off in bulk with instructions on it as to when it should be delivered. The customer gets a big discount for delivering bulk advertisements this way, but they also have much longer delivery times.
Again, not my area of expertise, but I think if you wrote the same thing on a standard envelope and dropped it in with the regular mail those instructions would be ignored.
I’ve been doing a bit of reading about this lately since a lot of folks selling used books on Amazon are shipping the books this way. Not only does it take a lot longer to ship, but the USPS lost my last book that I ordered (hence why I did some research into why it had such a long delivery time, etc). As I understand it, it’s supposed to be for things like advertising media (like what the OP received) and stuff like phone books. A used book on Amazon isn’t supposed to be shipped this way, but apparently a lot of them are doing it these days.
I think you are right, e_c_g. What I received was definitely presorted business mail, and maybe the USPS does have a way to handle this sort of mail for a specified delivery window.
Regarding books sold on ebay and amazon, these would qualify for media mail rates. I would think that media mail would be cheaper than even presorted mail for a book-size-and-weight package.
You’re correct that one does not just stick presorted bulk mail in a mailbox. You have to take it to the post office and identify it as such, and you have to get a permit and set up an account. And of course you have to do the presorting.
However, doing all of the above does not allow you to specify a delivery window. It merely gets you a discount on postage. Once you turn your bundle over to the USPS, it gets delivered just like anything else.
You are correct. The desired psychological effect is, “Damn, this must be from somebody important and powerful, who actually has the privilege of telling the post office when to deliver mail.”
The Post Office absolutely does pay attention to this. (Even though they aren’t legally required to do so – for business presort mail, the post office delivery standard is within 14 days.)
They pay attention because these businesses are big customers – they mail thousands of these letters, and they will complain if the letters are late (just like you’d complain if a repair tech doesn’t arrive during the scheduled time).
Also, it helps the Post Office, too. These letters were probably delivered to the postal sorting facility a week to 10 days in advance, but the PO could let them wait while processing higher-priority mail. And the same with your local mail carrier – they can only carry so much mail in their bag, and if it’s a busy day, stuff like this can be left for tomorrow, to make more room for 1st class mail. But they do try to deliver it by the last date listed – to keep the customer happy.
But this applies only to such delivery requests. The big warnings “Federal Offence to interfere with mail!!!” are indeed just marketing puffery. Throwing them directly into the recycling bin unopened is a sensible response – I’ve never found one worth opening.
You can tell them apart because deliver requests will be in smaller print, usually next to things like “Address Service Requested” or the barcode. The ‘marketing’ messages will be in big, bold lettering designed to catch your attention. Often with exclamation points and printed diagonally.
What t-bonham said. Different types of mail come to your carrier’s station by different methods. The birthday card from grandma had a barcode added at the first big post office/sectional center it went through, and was thenceforth routed automatically but individually to whatever office handles your ZIP code, where it was sorted to a particular carrier based on street address. But bulk mail and periodicals are presorted to the ZIP code level, and transported in bulk—pallets, or bags, or bundles—to your local post office. They’re sorted to the address as fill-in work, after the first-class mail is done. The stuff marked postal patron local isn’t really sorted at all; instead the carrier takes enough with him to give one to each delivery box.
I used to schedule bulk mailings for a regional corporation. Our only control over when it got delivered was when we delivered it to the postal area distribution center. Nothing that we wrote on the envelope made any difference.
If you could request a delivery window, this would be a non-issue; you’d just say "Postmaster please deliver between [Monday] and whenever, and you could bring your bulk mail earlier and not have to worry about early delivery. But you can’t, so marketers don’t.
Bulk mailers now constitute virtually all of the USPS business, and the post office will do pretty much whatever their clients tell them to do, in order to keep the revenue flowing in. Everything is presort, and all the post office does is wait for the specified date, snip the bands on the pallet, and jam the crap into every mailbox. With a huge enforcement division to protect the government monopoly on paper spam.
Mail to every postal customer does not need to be addressed. They can simply drop off bundles of leaflets, newspaper ads, or whatever. Then the carrier drops one off at each house.
So they are just telling the post office WHEN those should be distributed.
A good, general, rule of thumb is that the more “important” a letter looks, the more likely it is that it’s junk. How many times have you seen a bright yellow envelope with bold red writing that said “SECOND AND FINAL NOTICE”, worried that you may have missed something, you open it to find that it’s just for an extended car warranty?
Also, I don’t care what it says on the outside, if it says “or current occupant” it’s junk.
I used to be a print buyer, which means (among other things) I arranged for the printing and mailing of direct mail by mailing houses. Yes, the mail house pre-sorted the mail, drop shipping to Bulk Mail Centers or Sectional Center Facilities whenever possible. That made it easier to be delivered on time. When is on time? Generally speaking, we wanted mailed ads in homes Tuesdays and Wednesdays before the sale, which usually started Friday. The dates on the envelope would reflect that. Store managers always got an ad, and I’d be hearing from them if they didn’t receive theirs on Tuesday. Then I’d have to call the post office and talk to as many people as possible until someone swore they’d found the mail and would absolutely deliver it Wednesday. Then I’d call on Wednesday and talk to someone else who’d swear it would be delivered Thursday. And so on…
Yes, people are talking above about envelopes, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it on envelopes. It’s always on store circulars and coupon postcards. It’s not to make the mail seem important - it’s because the item is useless if it’s delivered too late and not effective if it’s delivered too early.
When I was living in the UK, I repeatedly received mail addressed to “the current occupant” of my address. The stuff was sent by TV Licensing, the BBC-affiliated body which collects TV licence fees - in Britain, as in other European countries, households with a TV set are legally obliged to register it and pay that fee, which is the backbone of the funding for the BBC. The letters got increasingly explicit in threatening legal action and even criminal prosecution against me if I operate a TV set without registering it (which I didn’t - neither had a TV, nor registered it). Of course, the “current occupant” part indicated that they hardly knew anything about me, not even my name, so the threat of legal action did not appear very plausible. Long story short: I never registered, never paid, but was surprised that a public body such as the BBC would resort to that sort of junk mail tactics.