6 ms·

Nearly all my mail ends up at addresses from my past. If it wasn't for e-bills, I would never receive (my own) bills. And I have received mountains of mail from

Nearly all my mail ends up at addresses from my past. If it wasn't for e-bills, I would never receive (my own) bills. And I have received mountains of mail from countless former tenants at every place I've lived, mail they will never see. The post doesn't seem very reliable to me.

beambot 15y ago
USPS needs to implement a form of indirect addressing. The basic premise: Assign recipients a unique ID. The physical address is then a single indirect lookup (ie. from a database, which can be altered by the recipient ad nauseum). For obvious reasons, SSN as a unique ID is out. Given the (relative) portability of phone numbers, these might be a good option. Alternatively, allowing users to employ their email address as the unique ID would be awesome! I'd pay an annual fee to USPS if senders could just write my email on an envelope and it would get to me (bonus points for selective digitization). I think this is one of the beauties of Google Voice service: It's indirect addressing for my phone number. If USPS took some initiative, they could really invigorate their service and bring it into the technical age.
- sp332 15y ago
  a database, which can be altered by the recipient ad nauseum They already have this, of course. You can send USPS a change-of-address form and they'll send mail addressed to you at your old address to your new address. https://moversguide.usps.com/icoa/icoa-main-flow.do?execution=e1s1 https://moversguide.usps.com/icoa/icoa-main-flow.do?executio...
  - beambot 15y ago
    I did this just last month. The postal worker informed me that the forwarding only lasted for a period of one year -- that's not a very good long-term solution.
DanBC 15y ago
...but that's less about the postal systems than it is about people updating addresses or forwarding mail on. I have some rubber stamps made with ADDRESSEE GONE AWAY RETURN TO SENDER and that seems to cut down the amount of repeated post. You can dump all the post for one person in a big envelope and dump that in a post box once a month.
- pavelkaroukin 15y ago
  And how it works after that? USPS just return mail to sender with no questions asked? I recently bought a house and also receiving bunch of mails. Once - check for few hundreds of some refund from some utility company. Thanks I had contact info of previous tenant, so I could mail it to him (never got a thanks letter :))
  - felipemnoa 15y ago
    >>And how it works after that? USPS just return mail to sender with no questions asked? Yes, of course.
Duff 15y ago
That's kind of your problem. If you used an old email address, you wouldn't get e-bills either.
- yesimahuman 15y ago
  The difference is I don't change my email once every year or so.
docgnome 15y ago
Oye, no joke. I get more mail for former residents of my home than I do for me. We have filled out the form to stop delivering that mail. Didn't work. We have called the mail annex the carriers leave from. Didn't work. We have left the carriers a friggin note. Didn't work. Also, my sister-in-law just sent us something she made for my daughter, which USPS promptly lost and did nothing to attempt to find. Granted she didn't add delivery confirmation on the package, but should I really have to pay extra to make sure my package will actually get there? If that is the case, raise the price of stamps to cover it.
lnguyen 15y ago
It is reliable if the address that's on the piece of mail is where it was sent to. The issue then is whoever's maintaining the address and paying to postage for sending it there. Also mail forwarding's worked pretty well for me. Just fill the info online or drop the card in the mail.
felipemnoa 15y ago
They only forward mail for a year. That should be plenty of time to change your addresses. It seems that you don't though.
juiceandjuice 15y ago
The benefit of this is outrunning junk mail.

beambot 15y ago

USPS needs to implement a form of indirect addressing. The basic premise: Assign recipients a unique ID. The physical address is then a single indirect lookup (ie. from a database, which can be altered by the recipient ad nauseum). For obvious reasons, SSN as a unique ID is out. Given the (relative) portability of phone numbers, these might be a good option. Alternatively, allowing users to employ their email address as the unique ID would be awesome! I'd pay an annual fee to USPS if senders could just write my email on an envelope and it would get to me (bonus points for selective digitization). I think this is one of the beauties of Google Voice service: It's indirect addressing for my phone number. If USPS took some initiative, they could really invigorate their service and bring it into the technical age.

sp332 15y ago
a database, which can be altered by the recipient ad nauseum They already have this, of course. You can send USPS a change-of-address form and they'll send mail addressed to you at your old address to your new address. https://moversguide.usps.com/icoa/icoa-main-flow.do?execution=e1s1 https://moversguide.usps.com/icoa/icoa-main-flow.do?executio...
- beambot 15y ago
  I did this just last month. The postal worker informed me that the forwarding only lasted for a period of one year -- that's not a very good long-term solution.

DanBC 15y ago

...but that's less about the postal systems than it is about people updating addresses or forwarding mail on. I have some rubber stamps made with ADDRESSEE GONE AWAY RETURN TO SENDER and that seems to cut down the amount of repeated post. You can dump all the post for one person in a big envelope and dump that in a post box once a month.

pavelkaroukin 15y ago
And how it works after that? USPS just return mail to sender with no questions asked? I recently bought a house and also receiving bunch of mails. Once - check for few hundreds of some refund from some utility company. Thanks I had contact info of previous tenant, so I could mail it to him (never got a thanks letter :))
- felipemnoa 15y ago
  >>And how it works after that? USPS just return mail to sender with no questions asked? Yes, of course.

Duff 15y ago

That's kind of your problem. If you used an old email address, you wouldn't get e-bills either.

yesimahuman 15y ago
The difference is I don't change my email once every year or so.

docgnome 15y ago

Oye, no joke. I get more mail for former residents of my home than I do for me. We have filled out the form to stop delivering that mail. Didn't work. We have called the mail annex the carriers leave from. Didn't work. We have left the carriers a friggin note. Didn't work. Also, my sister-in-law just sent us something she made for my daughter, which USPS promptly lost and did nothing to attempt to find. Granted she didn't add delivery confirmation on the package, but should I really have to pay extra to make sure my package will actually get there? If that is the case, raise the price of stamps to cover it.

lnguyen 15y ago

It is reliable if the address that's on the piece of mail is where it was sent to. The issue then is whoever's maintaining the address and paying to postage for sending it there. Also mail forwarding's worked pretty well for me. Just fill the info online or drop the card in the mail.

felipemnoa 15y ago

They only forward mail for a year. That should be plenty of time to change your addresses. It seems that you don't though.

juiceandjuice 15y ago

The benefit of this is outrunning junk mail.