9 ms·
The change of address form at USPS is laughably unsecure. All it takes is $1 and anyone can write any address and forward all the mail for 1 year to any other a
by marme 8y ago
The change of address form at USPS is laughably unsecure. All it takes is $1 and anyone can write any address and forward all the mail for 1 year to any other address. There is no verification of ID and the only warning you get is a post card at the original address telling you the mail is being forwarded but by then it is already too late as mail is already being routed to the new address. Even if you called immediately to stop it some of your mail would end up at the new address
- koboll 8y agoThere's a new feature they just rolled out that emails you images of the mail whenever it comes. Just as little security. You can spy on someone's mail indefinitely and they'd be none the wiser.
- reaperducer 8y agoYep. I get e-mail every few days with pictures of the mail headed for the people who now live in an apartment in another city I haven't lived in for close to 10 years. I've tried to get it fixed online, but so far no results.
- craftyguy 8y agoMy favorite part of this feature is that I now get to see images of junk mail before it is delivered to my mailbox. Too bad the USPS is so serious about maintaining their leadership as the 'leading deliverer of junk mail' to offer a way for recipients to reject it since they can literally see it in transit.
- tetrep 8y agoIf you could reject junk mail, junk mail senders wouldn't pay to, well, send it. And the USPS would lose a lot of money. Imagine how terrible GMail's spam filters would be if spammers paid Google for delivery... Oh wait, Google literally has a dedicated tab for that! For those that find it useful (and I don't doubt it is), imagine what the alternative would be for the spammers, you'd be 100% ignoring it by unsubscribing or filtering it as spam. Now that it's corralled off, you can look at it at your leisure, and Google can keep advertisers happy by offering them a non-zero chance you'll look at their spam.
- r00fus 8y agoHow about I get first right of refusal to outbid the spammer? I mean, ok so USPS is getting $5/mo for my address from a dozen companies. Can I just pay them that $5? Not today. I'd be happy to open the discussion on opting out of the junk mail without going to a costly service like earth-class mail.
- spacehome 8y agoCheck out Traveling Mailbox. Same basic idea as Earth-class mail, but cheaper and targeted more towards individuals rather than businesses. I'm not affiliated, but a satisfied customer.
- msandford 8y agoWhat's the biggest missing feature or "complaint" you have? I'm doing some research.
- spacehome 8y agoOn the whole, the service is brilliant, and exactly what USPS should have become in the mid-90s. Mail is auto-scanned and delivered as a pdf attachment to my email. When I need something physically forwarded to me, the prices are only a small markup from what it costs to mail the package, and it's mailed promptly. On the whole, it's awesome, and I'm very happy to be a customer. I'll give you my two big complaints: 1) The time delay. My Traveling Mailbox address is in the western half of the US. Mail has to be delivered to that address, then shipped cross country to North Carolina where their headquarters and mail scanner is. You can count on an additional 3 to 14 days after USPS thinks the mail has been delivered before a scan of it shows up in my email inbox. A couple years ago, this was much worse and less consistent; occasionally letters were 3 weeks late. However in the past 2 years or so, I've noticed the time delay has been much more consistent, centering around 3-5 business days. They maintain addresses all over the country, and there's probably only the scale and margin to maintain one scanning facility, so I don't know what TM could realistically do to address this problem. If I didn't need an address where I have it, I would have already moved my address to Sanford, NC, where their headquarters is. 2) Some banks don't like the address. Due to KYC laws, banks and financial institutions need a residential address for their clients. I'm homeless and don't have such an address, so this is difficult for me. Traveling Mailbox is nice in that they give you a street address, not a P.O. Box. To a casual glance, it looks like a normal street address, but if one researches the address online, one will find that it's a business. When I changed my address over to use my TM address as my home address, about half the financial institutions I worked with rejected the address as not being my residence and said they couldn't do business with me anymore. Some asked for a driver's license as proof of the address. I said no problem and faxed my driver's license (which has my TM address), but the institutions still closed my account without further explanation. I'm still a little salty about the hubris of the politicians who enacted the KYC laws, assuming that everybody conforms and has a permanent residential address.
- jngreenlee 8y agoThe most offensive part is that you can't unsubscribe from bulk mailings. It's like the USPS turned into the govt in Snow Crash.
- seanmccann 8y agoI just did this yesterday and it verified my credit card billing with either my previous or new address. Probably not that hard to pass that with a prepaid card.
- blang 8y agoI'm always shocked that when I pause my mail when I go on vacation that there is no verification and I can do it for free.
- smelendez 8y agoI was struggling to think of a profitable, malicious use case for this but there is at least one: send someone like your landlord a check with insufficient funds in your account and put a hold on their mail, hoping they won't straighten it out until you get paid.
- alonmower 8y agoI think that you not getting your check to your landlord in time is still your fault, not their's, even if it's lost or delayed in the mail
- coderzach 8y agoNo, because they won't get anyone's check, and then it's definitely their problem.
- gowld 8y agoLandlords and vendors can do the same thing: Send you a notice of changes in terms to your contract, and then bill you and send you to collections before you have a chance to object. (Been there, done that, with a landlord who decided that "the apartment I previously rented from her" was my current official contact address. )
- reaperducer 8y agoIt's only $1 to do it online. If you do it in person, it's free!
- chrischen 8y agoPostal mail is insecure yet companies and services like to rely on it as the authoritative form of notice and communication. That and also giving out info over the telephone. On one hand we have PCI-compliance, SSL encryption, and on the other hand we have a phone call (unecrypted, easily tappable anywhere along the thousands of miles of wire) where companies expect to call me and assume it's secure enough for me to 1) know that it's definitively them and 2) not have some support agent steal my credit card information/private information.
- exelius 8y agoThis drives me mad. My health insurance company tries to call me on a regular basis, but because they have to verify they’re speaking with me for HIPAA, they ask for the last 4 of my social. To which I reply “You called me. I don’t know that you are who you say you are. I’m not giving you anything.” And hang up. What moron thought this was a good idea?
- jonodubs 8y agoyes but put an address on a doctor's form or anything and they send you all their private info without checking if the address is yours or if it's even valid.
- Stratoscope 8y agoJust the last four? You're lucky. One time my own bank scammed me into giving them my full seven digit SSN over the phone when they called me. And all they had to do was ask me for it! The worst part was that I fell for it. Of course, no harm done, because it really was my bank, but what an idiot I was. At least I knew better when the Windows Support people started calling me a year later!
- himom 8y ago7 digits? It’s 3+2+4=9 digits in the US.
- 8y ago
- closeparen 8y agoSensitive mail such as ID and credit cards often will not follow address forwarding, for this reason. Was a huge PITA when I tried to renew my driver license while in college: I had to lift the forwarding setup from my parents’ house to get it to stop bouncing back to the DMV.
- jngreenlee 8y agoNot for me! I switched to a mail forwarding service (US Global Mail of Houston, TX) many years ago. The benefits are many-fold: -I no longer change my address when I move (my wife and I have lived in an flipped 10+ houses in 6 years) -I get to view full color envelope scans of all my mail at anytime and choose what to: fully scan, bundle and forward, or toss in the rubbish -I got to sign off with notarized US Govt forms that i am "no longer a customer of the USPS" -The only mail that arrives at my physical address is thus spam, and I toss all of it (I should rig a trash can to the bottom of the mailbox) -The price point is well within reason
- yosito 8y agoWhat's the form that says you're no longer a customer?
- jngreenlee 8y agoPs1583 https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://about.usps.com/forms/ps1583.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwinucjqvvzaAhWRA3wKHddtAEAQFjAAegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw3RZs9BI8lShh8mBphOmD3V https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://...
- StudentStuff 8y agoPerhaps move your mailbox to directly feed into your recycle can, with a transparent tube so the mailman can watch it go straight into the recycling!
- msandford 8y agoHey awesome! I'm glad you like it. I built that whole system from about 100 customers. I don't work there anymore but I did really enjoy making that stuff work.
- jngreenlee 8y agoThank you for your part of the product! It is good.
- 8y ago
- RIMR 8y agoYeah, and people can just open your mailbox and take your mail, so if people want it, they'll get it. Of course, the penalties are pretty harsh, so most people don't bother.
- sg0 8y agoI have used this mail forwarding service thrice and every time I have wondered what prevents me from forwarding my annoying neighbors' mails to Denali National Park. The answer is, fear of jail time.
- justin66 8y ago> The change of address form at USPS is laughably unsecure. Well, yes, but it's insecure in the same way that the average bank branch is insecure: - you're not going to get away with a lot (important stuff is sent using something more secure than first-class mail) - you're automatically committing a felony - your crime will automatically be investigated by federal law enforcement, not just the local donut patrol
- obelix_ 8y agoI once sent a friend a temp Gmail account login to read a doc. Next thing I know most Google apps on their phone is using that login. Search/video search/location history all available without their knowledge.
- lostlogin 8y agoIf there are shared computers in a workplace, it’s amazing how many people set up their personal email on the machines mail client. It’s mystifying how some of them do it and it seems to be accidental.
- Izkata 8y ago> and the only warning you get is a post card at the original address telling you the mail is being forwarded Uh, I didn't get one of those a few years ago when I moved. After the move I mailed something to my old address to make sure it worked.
- 5555624 8y agoActually, if you fill out the form, you can mail it in or hand it to a postal clerk and skip the $1 fee. I recently had to change my P.O. Box address and could not do it online; because the credit card used for the $1 charge has to match the old address.