In my state but not my town a communications company wants to erect a tower for cellular antennas. This does not concern me other than if I drive through the town I would have better reception.
Someone opposed to this for what I believe is a foolish reason is trying to rally their neighbors to oppose this. They did that by putting fliers in people’s mailboxes.
I know putting anything that does not have postage on it in a mail box is a federal offense and the 200 counts they could be charged with adds up.
I know all this because I read an article in the paper. I could assume that a postal worker in the town has read the same article so it will be addressed butr what would you do.
Nothing
Contact the postal service
Write a letter to the editor detailing why the person is misguided
Write a letter to the person who put the fliers in the box about the law they violated (person’s name is in the article)
If you want to read the article you can use google and search for app.com cell tower plan middletown
I have contacted the post office about things being placed in the mailbox. They take the address and contact them to advise them on the law. It is pretty effective in preventing repeat occurrences (to some extent - they tend to tuck them in the flag thing on the mailbox now).
IMHO, doing anything about the mailboxes is petty and pointless (you did say it’s not your mailbox or even your town? And how much harm was there even if it was your mailbox?).
If you feel strongly that the arguments in the flyer are incorrect (say, showing dangerous levels of unscientific thinking), the appropriate response is a letter to the editor of the paper. Though, depending on how far away you do live, they may be less interested in printing your letter than they would be for a resident’s letter (‘resident’ in this case meaning, ‘within the typical circulation of the paper’).
But in any event, win the argument on the merits of the case, not on petty bickering about technical and essentially harmless transgressions.
If they’re putting things IN your mailbox, they may also be taking things OUT. I say keep their mitts off the mailbox. IMO too many people feel free to invade our space. They put flyers under my windshield wiper when my car is in the parking lot…well, suppose they scratch my car or damage the wiper assembly?
I really doubt the person illegally putting fliers in a mailbox, is going to be removing your mail.
Let the people who live there worry about it. Communities don’t need external medaling in their affairs. I’m sure the local post office knows about the incident already. I can’t imagine they didn’t see the fliers in the boxes, on at least one occasion, somebody must have left it in the box.
It’s a slippery slope. You allow adults to do it…kids will do it next.
That aside, the contents of my mail—none of their goddamn business. Suppose I subscribe to Playboy; that’s between me, Playboy, and the P.O. Maybe the person opening my mailbox sees that sitting there.
Yes, other people should stay out of your mail box. Agreed. However, for the OP to call up the postal authorities to tell them about the incident described in the OP pretty much amounts to tattletaling, IMHO. I’d pick option #1.
If it happened in my community, I would complain for sure. Outside it, I’ll have to think about that.
Some people think these rules are stodgy or something. Maybe a scam artist will decide to print up some flyers to make herself look legit, then rummage through the mail ISO social security checks. Maybe kids will want to rip off my Playboys (when I subscribe some day, I mean).
Even the dumbest junk can gum up the works. A woman I work with got a call from her mortgage company, wondering where her payment was. She was sure she sent it but apologized and wrote another check, admonishing them not to cash both.
It turned out that somebody had sent one of those things—print a flyer, fold in half, attach with one staple—through the same mail she did. When did the USPO start allowing that? One day she got the original payment back from a good Sam with a note explaining that her envelope had been “trapped” inside that and took a long ride to somewhere else.
What if her credit score is compromised by a late payment? What if she wrote the check and went off on vacation, where she couldn’t be reached?
Like we don’t have enough problems with the USPO already? :dubious:
I didn’t say they had any business in your mail box. I’d report anybody I caught in mine. I said the person trowing in the fliers wasn’t likely to be taking your mail at the same time. Think about it. They just left identifying information.
The usual punishment is they require the offenders to pay the postage as if the mail service delivered it.
Well like I’ve said it is not my community and I only occasionally go through the town. I’ll have to do some research on the studies that show no constructive link between the cell phone towers and poor health effects. before I write the editors.
If I were stealing social security checks or anything else, I wouldn’t put my actual information on it. “Eat at Joe’s” would be fine, untraceable to me.
I should add that I’ve been a victim of having something stolen from the mailbox on at least one (and possibly more) occasions. The ex- and I were at Wal Mart and our credit card was declined. Calling the MC people, it turned out our card was used to run up about $3000 in a location hundreds of miles away.
The MC people said that thieves often target mailboxes at certain times of the month, and it just happened that our new card was in the mail to replace the one that was about to expire. They troll the neighborhood, opening all the mailboxes while everybody’s at work, taking whatever they find that is useful to them.
Luckily we had another credit card, and luckily our account was such that we weren’t responsible for these charges. Imagine if we’d been on vacation with just one credit card or something…could have been much worse.
I say I’ve been a victim “at least once” because I later had some identity theft problems. I can’t say for sure it could be traced back to that, however.
And this is the crux of what I’m saying. Sure, some people do it and it’s relatively harmless. Others, not so harmless. But unless you’ve got a way of differentiating them, IMO they all need to stay out.
I already stated they need to stay out of your mailbox. Do you not see that I’m saying this? Continuing this won’t say anything new, so I’m departing this thread.