The mail isn’t very reliable anymore. I get letters and magazines addressed to someone else.
example Pete Jones 33 Fartmore Place and I live at 33 Belchmuch Drive.
I have been dropping Pete’s mail in the mailbox at the Post Office. Hoping their sorter will do better next time.
Someone at work mentioned the stamp on that mail was canceled. Same with the magazines. Will it still get redelivered?
Is there a Post Office rule for this?
What if the letter has my address? 33 Belchmuch Drive? I know the neighbor lives at 39 Belchmuch Drive. Can I correct the address with a pen and drop it in the mail?
I personally write something like “Incorrectly delivered to <my address or the part of the address that is different from the addressee>. <My name> <current date>.”, and underline the part of the address that the postman goofed up on, e.g. if I am at 123 Main ST, and the letter says 124 Main ST, I would underline the 4. Then I drop it off in a post box.
I just stick it back out on the mailbox, unless I live at 1234 Anystreet and I get 1236’s mail. Then I just wander over and stick the mail in the correct mailbox. Technically, this is illegal.
Since this keeps happening, though, you might want to drop a line to the local postmaster.
To me, doing this implies that there is no person with that name at the address specified, which isn’t necessarily the case. If you are at 123 Main ST, and the mail was to John Smith, 124 Main ST, you can’t just say there is no one by that name at this address without specifying WHICH address they aren’t at.
I was snarkily told by a mail carrier several years ago that writing anything on an envelope is illegal, so if I got someone else’s mail and wrote “misdelivered,” they’d just stick in BACK in my mailbox without doing anything.
Surely, this was the statement of a single unhappy person, right?
In the U.S., your mail box is the property of the USPS, and only authorised people can put mail into it or take mail out of it – the relevant authorised people being the mail deliverer and the owner/occupants of the house. So you are not allowed to put anything in your neighbour’s mail box.
That’s why people delivering advertising (but not through USPS) don’t put it inside mail boxes, but just dump it next to the mail box. And it’s different in other countries: for example, in Australia, there’s no legal problem with anyone putting circulars into other people’s letter boxes. So, a lot of them in Australia have signs on them saying “No junk mail” or “Australia Post mail only”.
i can go and buy a mailbox from home depot. I’m not so sure sticking it on my property and having the postman put mail in it converts it over to government property.
From the USPS FAQ: (which I’m again not linking because the link is huge and does strange things to the board)
So no, the mailbox doesn’t magically become government properties, but there are laws regarding who can put what in your mailbox. Interestingly, it appears from that FAQ that putting your neighbors misdelivered mail back into his own mailbox is OK - it’s mail that has been sent through the USPS.
If you want to see the site, go to faq.usps.com, enter “mailbox” in the search field, and click on the first link. Has all the rules about mailboxes.
Yes, you’re right. I think that probably means that you could put the misdelivered letter into your neighbour’s mail box, but you can’t put anything in there that could go through the USPS, e.g., a Christmas card or party invitation.