My kids birthday was recently and my wife made all the invitations, addressed the envelopes, put return address labels on them and gave them to me to distribute among neighbors or take to the post office to get postage and mail them out.
Of the ones for the neighbors I took them in person however one neighbor was not home. Since we are all very close and I knew they wouldn’t mind I opened their mailbox and dropped the invite in.
About 3 days pass and I’m out getting my mail and in with the normal bills is the invitation, unopened, with the “insufficient postage, return to sender” stamp marked on it.
So I’m thinking it’s one of three things:
The mailman is a cocksucker, takes his job way too seriously, saw the invite and knew it was at the right house, saw the return address was directly across the street, confiscated it anyway since I “illegaly” used a U.S. mailbox and was determined to punish me by taking it back to the post office with him knowing it would take a couple days to get back to me.
I really was in the wrong. Even if they are your neighbors under no circumstances should you even touch their mailbox. It is a federal crime.
The mailman wasn’t paying attention and just grabbed the invite thinking it was outgoing mail from my neighbor, didn’t even look at the address or postage, and threw it in his mail bag (dubious, do they really not look at them). It’s not caught till the sorters at the post office find it?
I would say mostly (3), with a side of (2). It seems entirely plausible to me that the mailman simply opens up the mailbox and grabs everything inside, assuming it’s all outgoing USPS mail. Maybe he’ll notice that something doesn’t belong, maybe not. You put non-mail in the mailbox, you’re taking your chances.
I’ve dropped stuff in my mailbox that I’d forgotten to stamp and received it back similarly. How else do you think that happens with items that truly did have insufficient postage?
If it were 2, you wouldn’t have gotten the mail back as insufficient postage, you would have gotten a nasty letter from the Postmaster or something. And why would he bother with 1 when 2 was easily available if he wanted to be bitchy?
When my roomie put flyers into mailboxes once, we got a visit from the cops (due to neighbor complaints, not postal employee actions.) It really is a federal crime, y’know.
He wasn’t being a dick. What you did could technically prosecuted as a moderately serious crime. As teenage boys often find out when they decide to play mailbox baseball, mailboxes are something that you don’ty want to mess with. Regular citizens aren’t allowed to put anything inside someone else’s mailbox. You are allowed to put it on the outside of the mailbox somehow however.
I agree that is was probably #3 but he would still be right if it was still a strong #2. You interferred with mail delivery in a small way because the mailman wouldn’t have a good way to see if the mail should be going in/out/or returned to sender without studying the situation for clues and they don’t have time for that.
MrWhatsit is a mail carrier, and from his descriptions of his typical day, I’d say most likely 3. He’s usually in such a hurry to complete his route and get back to the post office before going into overtime that he’s barely even going to look at anything he pulls out of the mailbox, much less examine the return address and notice that it’s for a house across the street.
If I remember, I’ll ask him his opinion on this when he gets home tonight.
What he said. Everything that’s in a mailbox should be incoming or outgoing stamped and USPS-handled mail. Opening up someone else’s mailbox could expose you to suspicion of stealing mail if you’re seen by a passer-by or a letter carrier.
I agree that it was most likely accidentally taken as outgoing mail and then returned by the processing center, and that if the mail had been discovered as having been put in unstamped as a way to get around mailing them, you’d probably be getting a talking-to by the carrier or a letter from the postmaster or postal inspectors.
For what it’s worth, my mail carrier won’t even take the mail from my mailbox if the flag isn’t up. I think she looks as she drives up, and if the flag isn’t up, the mail just gets tossed in the box.
This is the same mail carrier that sits outside my house and honks her horn until I come out if she has a box to deliver, so I do have the idea that she’s a lazy dolt. But I always remember to put the flag up when I put mail in the box.
How can the post office tell the difference between honest mail that simply doesn’t have enough postage and someone taking advantage of the system by putting the intended destination as the return address? Is there a giant loophole here that everyone’s been missing?
I can see how since he knew he’s the only mailman in the area, and knew he didn’t put that letter there that it must be outgoing. Maybe he glanced at the return address, saw it was that same street, and didn’t look at the other address and make the connection. But then shouldn’t have noticed the lack of a stamp? Me, I wouldn’t put an item like that in the mailbox, I would have put it on the door.
As a postal employee, my gut instinct is 1. He’s a cocksucker. You wouldn’t believe the shit we turn a blind eye to - letters to “Grandma” go first bloody class regardless, and mailouts from the Scientologists get scrutinised to all hell. However, I’m not working for the US Postal Service, and those guys are internationally renowned as tough - so maybe your postman was just protecting himself.
Man, I never realised the USPS was so anal! Putting non-USPS mail in someone’s mailbox is a federal offence? That’s weird!!! But, I guess you could consider my ignorance fought!
In Australia, your mailbox is only for receiving mail. You wanna post something, you drop it in an Australia Post postbox (big, bright red, usually on the side of the road or near a post office) or you take it to the post office. So if you want to hand-deliver something (fliers, junkmail (aka unsolicited retail catalogues) or personal mail), you can just push it through the mail slot in the front of someone’s mailbox.
In Australia, you are required to have a “standard” (the specs are generous) letterbox, or Australia Post can refuse delivery. But your letterbox is yours. In America, the USPS owns the thing, and have all manner of evil Nazi rights over it.
On the other hand, before we bag the Americans too much, they can get stuff picked up from their mailbox, which we can’t. And that’s pretty dang civilised.
DISCLAIMER: Opinions given above are mine, and not given as a representative of the Australian Postal Corporation, yadda yadda.
When I was a carrier, I grabbed any mail to go and dumped it in the right spot in my bag. I doubt I would have noticed it was unstamped, and I certainly wouldn’t notice the address. I had enough houses on my routes that I wasn’t going to dawdle examining anything that didn’t get me through the route.
