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Occasionally USPS sends me pictures of other people's mail

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Re: Occasionally USPS sends me pictures of other people's mail

#51

Post by buzer »

1a527dd5 wrote: post #10

I have a version of this; I have the email {{popular-asian-surname}}@gmail.com and I've seen _everything_. I've had many many bank statements from India. I've had someone in California order a brand new BMW and got the details for collection. I've had paypal invoices and statements (this is one funny because they refuse to action the delink). I used to reach out and tell them I didn't sign up for their service. But h…

I recently logged into one of my email addresses that I hadn't used in years and discovered quite a few people had used it as their address for multiple things (of course they didn't have access to it so everything was unread). Lots of services do not really bother to validate the email address (there were e.g. Facebook, Instagram & TikTok emails).

One bigger item was that people were sending details regarding an estate & inheritance. This included an attorney office in Finland (to be clear, I'm also originally from Finland). After finding out I sent email to their DPO as this likely qualifies as GDPR security incident as the emails contained things like names, SSNs, addresses & of course details regarding how inheritance was split. I never got an answer so I reported it to Finnish DPA. I got reply from them pretty quickly that they contacted the DPO and that DPO will be in contact with me soon & the case is closed from DPA side. This was 4 months ago, I'm yet to be contacted by them.

Re: Occasionally USPS sends me pictures of other people's mail

#52

Post by tortilla »

lvl155 wrote: post #40
1a527dd5 wrote: post #10

I have a version of this; I have the email {{popular-asian-surname}}@gmail.com and I've seen _everything_. I've had many many bank statements from India. I've had someone in California order a brand new BMW and got the details for collection. I've had paypal invoices and statements (this is one funny because they refuse to action the delink). I used to reach out and tell them I didn't sign up for their service. But h…

This is me. I was one of first batches of gmail users when it went public. I have a common name. It’s wild that people will just use my email because they forget their own email address.

Same. Mine is my username here.

It did show me early on why web apps need to verify email ownership.

Re: Occasionally USPS sends me pictures of other people's mail

#53

Post by zippergz »

nemomarx wrote: post #3
duxup wrote: post #2

I wonder he he also receives that mail or was going to but someone caught it? My post office for a good year was horrendous about delivering me my neighbor's mail. I felt like a Jr. Mail Carrier in training ;) Last few years they've been SPOT on. I tried informed delivery but honestly it's more of a hassle for me as my wife says "this should have arrived today" and of course it doesn't so she thinks it's stolen and .…

I get that with normal tracking lately too, like Amazon reporting something is delivered the day before it actually shows up. Have we misaligned some metric where now shippers want to announce stuff early so they can claim speed?

I've definitely gotten the sense that the flip side of that is happening - in many cases, items get marked as "shipped" when the label is printed, but often shippers don't hand the package off to the carrier until days later. I can't prove it but sometimes it very much feels like sellers, especially on platforms like etsy and ebay, make sure to print the label immediately and mark the item as shipped so they can claim fast shipping, but then are in no hurry whatsoever to actually get the package in transit. Maybe this is not nefarious and is just a side effect of the way the systems work together, but as a customer it's pretty annoying. For me it's less about how long it takes to get the item and more about feeling mislead on whether it is actually on its way or not.

Re: Occasionally USPS sends me pictures of other people's mail

#54

Post by JoshTriplett »

kube-system wrote: post #9
reaperducer wrote: post #4

This is no big deal. From the photograph in the blog, it's clearly a problem with the mail handling machine. No big whoop. As a reminder, there is no legal expectation of privacy for the outside of your mail. Envelopes are no different than post cards. Anyone can legally read them. Years ago, I'd signed up for the Informed Delivery service, which is where these images originate. When I moved, I forgot to cancel the s…

Did you not put in a change of address request? They automatically unenroll you from informed delivery.

You shouldn't put in a change of address; USPS sells those addresses as a revenue source. Just manually change your address with each service.

Re: Occasionally USPS sends me pictures of other people's mail

#55

Post by smelendez »

encom wrote: post #38

What's the point of a service that emails you pictures of your snail mail? You'll know about it anyway when it's delivered, and unlike a parcel, no action is required to receive it. Not snark, I'm legitimately asking - I'm probably missing something. I legitimately can't remember the last time I received actual mail in my mailbox. Everything goes to e-boks.dk.

It's mostly only mildly useful for me. But I recently had a bank send me a new debit card as mine was about to expire, and the card never arrived. The bank was under the impression it was delivered a certain day, and I was able to tell them that I have Informed Delivery and as far as I could tell, the USPS never even attempted to deliver the card (or, as it happened, anything else that particular day).

If you are waiting on a particular piece of mail it sometimes can be handy to know it'll be in your box soon instead of repeatedly checking the tracking or double-checking with the sender. If you don't receive mail every day, and your mailbox is at all exposed to the elements, it can remind you to check the box that day.

And if your mail is delivered where other people have access to it—a spouse, kids, roommates, etc.—it can let you know to check in with them if you don't see something that they may have put in an unusual place.

Re: Occasionally USPS sends me pictures of other people's mail

#56

Post by jasonthorsness »

joezydeco wrote: post #48
jasonthorsness wrote: post #37

Wow TIL about the USPS Informed Delivery service that sends pictures of your mail for free. Apparently OP might occasionally see my mail but who cares, this is great https://www.usps.com/manage/informed-delivery.htm

I use this service. It's not that useful but sometimes it's good to see when an expected piece of mail is (roughly) going to arrive. From what I can tell this was a capability the USPS has had for a while, probably going back to the days of anthrax spores being sent to politicians. The USPS was probably directed to track where every piece of mail came from and image the outside of it. Informed Delivery was just a mon…

It was free to sign up, but...

> Note that some pieces of mail trigger ads from third party companies.

of course they do (although the mail itself is like 95% ads anyway with junk mail so I guess I won't really complain)

Re: Occasionally USPS sends me pictures of other people's mail

#57

Post by wombatpm »

JohnFen wrote: post #8
duxup wrote: post #2

I wonder he he also receives that mail or was going to but someone caught it? My post office for a good year was horrendous about delivering me my neighbor's mail. I felt like a Jr. Mail Carrier in training ;) Last few years they've been SPOT on. I tried informed delivery but honestly it's more of a hassle for me as my wife says "this should have arrived today" and of course it doesn't so she thinks it's stolen and .…

> My post office for a good year was horrendous about delivering me my neighbor's mail. Mine still is. Misdelivered mail has done more to help me get to know my neighbors than anything else. It's pretty community-building.

My house number is 110. My neighbor at 116 bought a condo in Florida. Why do I know this? Because for 3 months I was getting all of his HOA correspondence. People make mistakes. Technology just allows people to make mistakes in seconds that would have taken minutes before.

Re: Occasionally USPS sends me pictures of other people's mail

#58

Post by huslage »

1a527dd5 wrote: post #10

I have a version of this; I have the email {{popular-asian-surname}}@gmail.com and I've seen _everything_. I've had many many bank statements from India. I've had someone in California order a brand new BMW and got the details for collection. I've had paypal invoices and statements (this is one funny because they refuse to action the delink). I used to reach out and tell them I didn't sign up for their service. But h…

I briefly had {{firstname}}@gmail.com back when it was invite only. Man that was a mistake.

Re: Occasionally USPS sends me pictures of other people's mail

#59

Post by somehnguy »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #39
somehnguy wrote: post #12

Where this gets interesting is that very often you can see through the envelope slightly. It's similar to if you hold a flashlight to the back of an envelope and can then see 'through' it to read the paper inside.

Not really. It's good for snagging coupon codes, but not much else. Anything important will (should) be inside an envelope that is thick enough to block this trick.

Just like USPS should not send you images of other peoples mail, a lot of mail isn't in the type of envelope they should be. I'm looking at multiple bank statements where I can read balances.

Another vector is the plastic window many envelopes have to show the addressee printed on the paper inside. I have another healthcare related letter I can read through that.

Re: Occasionally USPS sends me pictures of other people's mail

#60

Post by firesteelrain »

lvl155 wrote: post #40
1a527dd5 wrote: post #10

I have a version of this; I have the email {{popular-asian-surname}}@gmail.com and I've seen _everything_. I've had many many bank statements from India. I've had someone in California order a brand new BMW and got the details for collection. I've had paypal invoices and statements (this is one funny because they refuse to action the delink). I used to reach out and tell them I didn't sign up for their service. But h…

This is me. I was one of first batches of gmail users when it went public. I have a common name. It’s wild that people will just use my email because they forget their own email address.

Yep, got mine in 2006.
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