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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

#71

Post by jerlam »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #54
kube-system wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In my experience, they're also not particularly reliable either.

After filing a change of address form, I got quite a bit of mail still going to the old address. The forwarded mail, if it arrived at all, was significantly delayed.

It also costs money after a period of time, then expires.

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

#72

Post by madcaptenor »

smelendez wrote: post #55
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 wai…

I started using it once I moved into an apartment complex where the mailboxes are not between the entrance and my apartment. If I know I have mail coming that is actually important I reroute to get the mail, which would be annoying to do every day.

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

#73

Post by dhosek »

PopePompus wrote: post #69

This happens to me almost daily. I get photos of mail sent to the couple I bought my house from 4.5 years ago. Their mail never actually arrives in my mailbox, but it's still quite a privacy breech for the former owners (who were clearly operating a business out of their home, in violation of the HOA rules (not that I care an iota)).

What I’ve observed from six years of informed delivery is that the sorting step that generates the images for informed delivery happens before the step that handles forwarding and return to sender.

I’m not sure that any of the cases are that big of a privacy breach: It’s more inline with either getting the neighbor’s mail in your mailbox (which in my experience happens at about the same rate) or getting previous residents‘ mail in your mailbox (although my current carrier, after checking with me, intercepts most of these on her own initiative so I don‘t have to deal with them).

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

#74

Post by dhosek »

jasonthorsness wrote: post #56
joezydeco wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

The ones that amuse me the most are the ads for—informed delivery.

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

#75

Post by dhosek »

nottorp wrote: post #35
garciasn wrote: post #6

I get this semi-frequently too; but, the biggest problems for me w/this system are: 1. I get the pictures DAYS before the actual mail (weekends ignored). Why?! 2. I sometimes don't get pictures of the mail at all, particularly mail that's not bulk mail--it's from individual to individual. I could give a flying fuck that I'm going to be getting 5 advertisements in a few days. I want to know when I'm getting ACTUAL mai…

> 1. I get the pictures DAYS before the actual mail (weekends ignored). Why?! I'd bet it's because the envelopes are photographed in some central location, the photos get sent at the speed of light but the physical envelopes only start getting to the last mile physical delivery people after .

Indeed, there are regional sorting centers that then send to the local post offices to go to the carriers. Although what I find odd is that for residential delivery, I always get the mail the same day, only at my P.O. Box does the mail sometimes come 1–3 days later.

If you look at the email, the promise isn’t “coming today” but “coming soon”.

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

#77

Post by SoftTalker »

firesteelrain wrote: post #15
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…

I was going to write the same thing. Only thing I will add that these scanners can actually peer into the envelopes due to I guess the bright light used by the scanners. I can sometimes read letters before I actually physically receive them. Therefore, the thicker the better and use privacy envelopes if you are really concerned.

> these scanners can actually peer into the envelopes due to I guess the bright light used by the scanners

You write that as if it's accidental.

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

#79

Post by masfuerte »

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.

I'm in the same boat. I assume people do it because some website is demanding an email address and they don't want to give one, so they give the "default" one.

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

#80

Post by SoftTalker »

jerlam wrote: post #71
JoshTriplett wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In my experience, they're also not particularly reliable either. After filing a change of address form, I got quite a bit of mail still going to the old address. The forwarded mail, if it arrived at all, was significantly delayed. It also costs money after a period of time, then expires.

They only forward first class mail and maybe newspapers/magazines IIRC.
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