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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

#81

Post by mixdup »

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 have first initial last name @gmail.com and it is a VERY common English language last name. This phenomenon got so bad I just abandoned that address and account. At some point you can't keep up with it, and marking legit email as spam has consequences of now MY email is getting marked as spam

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

#82

Post by rattus_rattus »

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.

I find it super helpful! I get the emails for both my personal mail box on my street (nice to know if I should check it today or if it’s just junk and I can check it tomorrow or the next day) and for a PO Box.

I am the treasurer for an organization related to my job. We don’t usually get mail and the PO Box is located a few towns over. I rely on the emails to know when I need to visit the PO Box. It saves me gas and time, so I love it. Even if the PO Box was nearby, the emails would still save me time and hassle.

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

#83

Post by crazygringo »

zippergz wrote: post #53
nemomarx wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 clai…

That definitely happens, I don't think it's intentionally nefarious though.

They tend to package and label orders as they come in, that's the only thing you can do to be efficient -- you can't let them build up.

But then they only drop off (or get pickup) 2x/week, e.g. Tues and Fri. Which might be fine if that's what their shipping times indicate.

But then the buyer gets confused because they assume it was mailed immediately, which it wasn't. But there's no way for a seller to print shipping labels from eBay in advance without eBay marking it as "shipped".

It gets even more confusing because with bulk pickups or dropoffs, they often don't even get scanned when the carrier receives them. They won't show as actually in the carrier's hands until they reach the first major hub, which can easily be a day or even two later.

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

#84

Post by encom »

rattus_rattus wrote: post #82
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.

I find it super helpful! I get the emails for both my personal mail box on my street (nice to know if I should check it today or if it’s just junk and I can check it tomorrow or the next day) and for a PO Box. I am the treasurer for an organization related to my job. We don’t usually get mail and the PO Box is located a few towns over. I rely on the emails to know when I need to visit the PO Box. It saves me gas and…

Yea PO boxes absolutely make sense, didn't think of that.

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

#85

Post by jabroni_salad »

Every now and then I return-to-sender something that looks important to my address's previous resident and sharpie out the barcode along the bottom. If you don't do this your RTS items will come back to you regardless of what you stamp it with. Even still I receive an informed delivery photo of it.

My belief is that the informed delivery system is using optical recognition while the sorters are using the barcodes.

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

#86

Post by bogrollben »

madaxe_again wrote: post #41
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…

My email address is my full name. It’s not a common one, there are four of us that I can discover online. My Floridian namesake has a troubled existence - I get emails from debt collectors, the police, court summons, and his employer, an HVAC company. He also likes Dolly Parton and crystal meth, and goes to rennaisance fayres. My namesake from BC likes to go to nightclubs and Costco, and is very busy on the gay datin…

As a movie, this would do well at the Cannes Film Festival.

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

#87

Post by dml2135 »

DamnInteresting wrote: post #61

I use Informed Delivery for my PO box since I don't get much mail there. The worst thing about it is that the USPS uses the system to announce when there are new episodes of Mailin’ It! - The Official USPS Podcast . They send the daily digest saying "You have 1 mailpiece arriving soon." Instead of the usual picture of the 'mailpiece', it's an image illustrating the episode. There is no physical mail corresponding to…

Physical junk mail is the USPS' bread and butter, so it's not surprising that they have no qualms about sending email spam either.

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

#88

Post by fsckboy »

firesteelrain wrote: post #17
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 had someone send me their entire credit report. Luckily I am not a scammer and I deleted it for them. They sent me an Amazon gift card to thank me for not stealing their PII. I get DoorDash order notifications, Uber notifications, etc I am not sure how they signed up with my email as I never got a sign up notification Part of this also is because email / gmail is not case sensitive Jsmith@gmail.com is the same as j…

>email / gmail is not case sensitive Jsmith@gmail.com is the same as jsmith@gmail.com

gmail is not case sensitive. email systems are allowed to be case sensitive, most choose not to be. This used to be an issue to deal with when pre-internet legacy email addresses (like Lotus Notes corporate email, or Outlook/Exchange systems) were put onto the internet.

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

#89

Post by kube-system »

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.

There are plenty of other sources selling my address anyway. Having mail forwarded is a good way for me to know which ones I need to update.

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

#90

Post by Y_Y »

yakk0 wrote: post #62
saghm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail also parses out periods in the address. j.smith@gmail.com will go to the same place as `jsmith@gmail.com`.

I have firstnamelastname@gmail.com and it surprises me how many other people have my same name. I get so much unintended mail, usually to firstname.lastname at gmail. I have found that in a lot of cases they have forgotten a middle initial. I usually let it go as spam unless it looks important like a credit card. What frustrates me is that these companies will not interface with me at all, sometimes not even leaving…

I get credit card stuff and credit report stuff from bozos with similar nanes to me. I used to try to inform them, they won't let me. The worst are Experian, who won't let me interact with them at all, because I can't prove I'm the person or people who've been mistakenly using my email address.
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