5 ms·

I don't know about the USPS's implementation, but the UK's Royal Mail not only collects ID for this service, but sends an unredirectable letter to your old addr

by pmyteh 8y ago

I don't know about the USPS's implementation, but the UK's Royal Mail not only collects ID for this service, but sends an unredirectable letter to your old address saying 'we're starting a redirect, contact us if this is odd'. So it is possible to do sanely. Like Facebook, I suppose - require a scanned death certificate?

nfRfqX5n 8y ago
USPS sends the same letter and requires you to answer several questions before doing it
- pzxc 8y ago
  No they don't. My roommate moved out a few months ago, I watched him fill out the mail forwarding form (with his name and my/our address). Not only did no confirmation letter show up in my mailbox -- in fact I stopped getting my own mail for several days and when I confronted the USPS worker, he said, "Oh, I thought your apartment was vacant now." I got pretty mad and he just shrugged, not even an apology. I had to get my car's title reissued from the DMV (I had just bought it off my roommate as he was leaving), and also had a paycheck disappear (was working 1099 remotely and paid monthly via check) because both things were coming in the mail that week and disappeared never to be seen again. (Luckily the guy I was subcontracting from paid for his own stop payment and reissued the check)
  - Izkata 8y ago
    Yeah, when I moved a few years ago I also got no confirmation. So after the move, I sent a letter to my old address, with no return address, to see if it got redirected. (Although my letter did, I'm pretty sure my first Ventra card was lost in the mail anyway. With the insanity of the switch it got delayed a couple months, and ended up getting sent out right about when I moved)
iaml 8y ago
Or you can just send an email asking if user is still alive.
Nition 8y ago
Last time I did this, the "we're starting a redirect, contact us if this is odd" letter was sent after the redirect started, and it was helpfully redirected to the new address!
- kevsim 8y ago
  Seamless!
- chrismeller 8y ago
  The USPS sends two - one to your old address and one to your new address. The one sent to your old address does indicate that they’re redirecting - that is, it is sent after the fact, it is not asking for confirmation or providing a grace period before they do - but it is marked clearly as something that should not be forwarded. I suppose it could have been forwarded by accident (at scale screw ups do happen), but perhaps you confused one with the other?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
sandov 8y ago
>Like Facebook, I suppose - require a scanned death certificate? This whole discussion is completely absurd. What went so wrong that we want to send our government IDs and death certificates to one of the companies with worse records with respect to their users' data? The real solution is to stop using Facebook.
- scottlocklin 8y ago
  Amen to that. Monetization of friendships (and "friendships") is evil.
  - wowButSerious 8y ago
    But beyond any of that, the idea that a Facebook account needs to correlate to real world consequences, and real world facts is beyond stupid. I can buy ten phones, create ten free email addresses, and create ten facebook accounts, tonight, and no one can stop me, or challenge what I've done, as long as it's not invasive and obnoxious to other users. Nor should it be possible to draw reproach for doing such a thing. There are real reasons for users to want to create dummy accounts like that, and as usual, there's no reason 99 people need to suffer because one asshole has to misbehave. Facebook, as a walled garden, is fated to forever lack practical utility. It's like a rain gutter that empties into a sewage facility you can never see inside. If you know that you can crack open a mercury thermometer and dump it into the drain, don't drink the lemonade they're selling outside the front gate, unless you can prove it's not contaminated by your thermometer disposal activities.
perl4ever 8y ago
The USPS also sends a notification to the old address.

by pmyteh 8y ago

nfRfqX5n 8y ago

USPS sends the same letter and requires you to answer several questions before doing it

pzxc 8y ago
No they don't. My roommate moved out a few months ago, I watched him fill out the mail forwarding form (with his name and my/our address). Not only did no confirmation letter show up in my mailbox -- in fact I stopped getting my own mail for several days and when I confronted the USPS worker, he said, "Oh, I thought your apartment was vacant now." I got pretty mad and he just shrugged, not even an apology. I had to get my car's title reissued from the DMV (I had just bought it off my roommate as he was leaving), and also had a paycheck disappear (was working 1099 remotely and paid monthly via check) because both things were coming in the mail that week and disappeared never to be seen again. (Luckily the guy I was subcontracting from paid for his own stop payment and reissued the check)
- Izkata 8y ago
  Yeah, when I moved a few years ago I also got no confirmation. So after the move, I sent a letter to my old address, with no return address, to see if it got redirected. (Although my letter did, I'm pretty sure my first Ventra card was lost in the mail anyway. With the insanity of the switch it got delayed a couple months, and ended up getting sent out right about when I moved)

iaml 8y ago

Or you can just send an email asking if user is still alive.

Nition 8y ago

Last time I did this, the "we're starting a redirect, contact us if this is odd" letter was sent after the redirect started, and it was helpfully redirected to the new address!

kevsim 8y ago
Seamless!
chrismeller 8y ago
The USPS sends two - one to your old address and one to your new address. The one sent to your old address does indicate that they’re redirecting - that is, it is sent after the fact, it is not asking for confirmation or providing a grace period before they do - but it is marked clearly as something that should not be forwarded. I suppose it could have been forwarded by accident (at scale screw ups do happen), but perhaps you confused one with the other?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

sandov 8y ago

>Like Facebook, I suppose - require a scanned death certificate? This whole discussion is completely absurd. What went so wrong that we want to send our government IDs and death certificates to one of the companies with worse records with respect to their users' data? The real solution is to stop using Facebook.

scottlocklin 8y ago
Amen to that. Monetization of friendships (and "friendships") is evil.
- wowButSerious 8y ago
  But beyond any of that, the idea that a Facebook account needs to correlate to real world consequences, and real world facts is beyond stupid. I can buy ten phones, create ten free email addresses, and create ten facebook accounts, tonight, and no one can stop me, or challenge what I've done, as long as it's not invasive and obnoxious to other users. Nor should it be possible to draw reproach for doing such a thing. There are real reasons for users to want to create dummy accounts like that, and as usual, there's no reason 99 people need to suffer because one asshole has to misbehave. Facebook, as a walled garden, is fated to forever lack practical utility. It's like a rain gutter that empties into a sewage facility you can never see inside. If you know that you can crack open a mercury thermometer and dump it into the drain, don't drink the lemonade they're selling outside the front gate, unless you can prove it's not contaminated by your thermometer disposal activities.

perl4ever 8y ago

The USPS also sends a notification to the old address.