There is a staff report on this.
Come to think of it, why do we have the blue drop boxes and pickup from our individual mailboxes? I never really thought about it before.
That one is very simple:
The big blue mailboxes are for general use. Most people don’t have access every single day to a private mail pickup. Some people need to mail something on vacation and some people don’t have ready access to anything else at all. Not everyone can just drive to a post office any time they need to mail something either. It is bot for convenience and necessity.
Not only does the post office pickup outgoing mail, I also leave my parcel post and other packages in my overly large mail box for pickup too. My mailperson calls me the Ebay guy, it’s not unusual for me to send out packages 6 days a week. Just today I shipped 2 Monopoly games, a growler beer jug and a diecast truck and didn’t go anywhere near the post office.
Crazy! This would come in really handy. For once I’m a little jealous of all you 'merkins.
I often see and greet my mail carrier. She’s driving a huge route and does not look at the outgoing mail, but scoops it up and throws it in a bin. My vote is for 3.
Could it be that your neighbor slid a couple of envelopes in without checking the box first and raised the flag? The mail carrier then would have pulled all of the outgoing mail out and found one missing postage and returned it to sender.
I wish we had that. Instead, people jam their outgoing mail under the upper left corner of the mailbox frame. OK if it’s nothing secure, but not great for check and such.
I’ll second SmackFu, but in the past tense: I wish the various cluster boxes that I’ve used had provided a dedicated box for outgoing mail! I’ve lived in 3 apartment complexes and 2 townhouse neighborhoods, and 4/5 of those places used cluster boxes (or the apartment equivalent thereof). Not one of them provided an easy way to handle outgoing mail. Appreciate what you have. 
Oops, duplicate post.
I believe when you have a carrier with a walking route, they are not required to pick up outgoing mail. Our mailbox is attached to our house and does not have a flag on it, I always thought that meant outgoing mail is technically not supposed to go in it? Our mail carrier is walking around with just her one bag over her shoulder. If she was required to pick up a lot of outgoing mail, especially heavy packages I can see why that might be cumbersome or impossible after a while. It was my understanding that she does not have to pick up outgoing mail, but she does do it when I leave a piece or 2 there for her. However, I try not to take advantage and leave bulk mail like invitations or any kind of package for her to carry around, and I think she would refuse those.
When the carrier has a driving route, where the mailboxes are on the curb, it is understood that leaving mail in the box with the flag up is fine. Growing up our house had a route like that and we always left outgoing mail in our box, now I take it to work with me or drop it in the nearest blue box.
No. The federal crime is ‘damaging, destroying or otherwise interfering with the mail’ – you didn’t do any of those.
Generally, the local carrier. As a courtesy to you, their customer. Remember that they depend on mail for their jobs – they are already losing business to voicemail, faxes, and email. They want to make it easy for you to use their services.
But if it’s big volumes of mail, or packages, they can decline to take them. Or just if they have a heavy mailsack that day. But most carriers are quite willing to take outgoing mail.
I believe that if you are elderly or disabled, you can call the Post Office and specifically request mail pickup. Then the Postmaster will give your mail carrier orders to pickup outgoing mail from your house. But I’ve never heard of anyone having to do this. When a neighbor broke her hip, she left outgoing mail with a note about her broken hip; the carrier not only took the mail, he also replied with a note saying “no problem” and even left her an envelope to order stamps by mail, in case she ran out.
Huh, the things you learn at the SDMB. I thought everyone put outgoing mail in their regular mailboxes. I’ve been around 46 years and have never seen a mailbox that the carrier didn’t pick up from (to my knowledge).
My mailbox in front of my house doesn’t even have a flag. I just place outgoing mail in there, and Reuben picks it up. I guess he’s smart enough to figure that out, but I make it easier by placing any outgoing mail right at the very front, just inside the door, because he always stuffs incoming mail a little farther back.
I’m also amazed there are Americans who don’t use their mailbox for outgoing mail, assuming you don’t live in a really bad neighborhood. Netflix would be a real PIA if I had to drop my discs off someplace.
I lost my cat recently and went around the neighborhood sticking little flyers in everyone’s mailboxes. The USPS hasn’t given me any nasty phone calls yet. But who knows, I may be going to prison soon.
American mail carrier checking in…
As for the question of why we pick up mail from some boxes and not others depends on what type of service you have. If your box is on the street, it should be the type of box that is servicable from the vehicle and has a flag to alert the carrier to stop. With this type of delivery, your carrier should pick up your outgoing mail whether or not they have mail for you.
If your box is on your house, you do not have automatic pick up service for the simple reason that if I do not have mail for your house on any given day, they would rather I not waste the time climbing up your steps to open your mailbox on the off chance that you might be mailing something out.
Having said that, if I see a letter hanging off your box, I will come and get it. I cannot say the same for most of my coworkers.
As for the OP’s question, I would say 3. I really have no interest in whether or not you have correct postage on a letter. That is handled by other people.
As for people putting non mail in boxes, I personally ignore it, but if it is hanging halfway out of the box and falls out when I open the box, I will not pick it up off the ground. (with the exception of the dog warden’s cards)
While I’m running on, the question of why not just reverse the addresses so that it will go to the recipient as postage due… the simple answer is because it could go either way. If you try to do this from different cities, it is obvious from the post mark. If you are in the same city, you might get away with it or it might be delivered to you (the addressee) postage due. Probably 50/50 chance. If they see this more than once…well, trust me, you don’t want to deal with the postal inspectors. I could tell you some stories, but I don’t want to deal with them either. If you put the same address in both spaces to force the letter to go to that address, postage will be charged on that end.
One more comment… we are absolutely not required to pick up mail with money instead of postage. I personally will not do this, because if that letter should get lost along the way, I could be accused of keeping the money and not mailing the letter.
Just as an FYI, it is really true that you shouldn’t do that and people really do get visits from the scary people although I don’t know anyone that has gone to prison for doing it for a lost cat. The correct procedure is to put it somewhere on the outside of the mailbox. My oil company puts invoices in between the flag and the box on the outside and never, ever inside of the box. Unsavory companies that hire people to go around and distribute flyers can get in business ending hurt if those people go around opening and closing people’s mailboxes.
I have personally known several friends and family members that have run afoul of postal regulation and it may be better to assault one (in some states) or have both the FBI and the IRS knock on your door within ten minutes of each other. They don’t generally push minor issues too far but they also have a draconian rulebook that they can throw at you if they want to.
I did wonder about it and I’m glad this thread came up. In the future I’ll stick them to the mailbox or something.
The mail carrier would have to report you, and most will ignore such one-time neighborhood notices. Either just being nice, or maybe not interested in taking their time filling out the forms and sending them to a postal inspector.
But they can!
During a political campaign, some of our volunteers didn’t pay attention to the instructions to NOT put flyers in mailboxes. On one particular route, the mail carrier did complain to the postal inspector. (That carrier just happened to be active in the other political party.) Results were that the campaign office got a nasty call from the postal inspectors that very afternoon, and later a bill for an estimated 75 flyers, with postage due at the First Class rate for each one, and 7 days to pay this. And nasty threats if it happened again.
So you won’t go to prison; but you might have to pay postage on each of those flyers. They’d rather collect money from you than pay to keep you in prison!
Yeah, I get that they can, and I won’t do it again. It kinda bugs me though. I can see if the PO installed my mailbox. But if I go out and buy a mailbox where do they get off deciding who can and can’t put stuff in it? Pretty much everyone in my neighborhood has mailboxes they’ve obviously bought and installed themselves.
What about people who have mail slots in their front doors? Is the PO the only entity which can stick a flyer in there?