USPS Informed Delivery
 

I spotted this new service at usps.com:

"Receive an email with images of the mail that will be placed in your mailbox each day. Black and white images of your actual letter-sized mail pieces, processed by USPS sorting equipment, will be provided to you each morning."

Whether you think it's useful and informative or only a silly feature is up to you.

I have the service, but it is not consistent, I don't trust it, and I end up going to the mailbox everyday anyway. I recently received my passport in the mail, but the informed mail did not scan it, apparently because it was sent priority mail, even though it was in my mailbox. So, if they are not going to scan priority mail or certified mail, what good is the service? It seems like another USPS taxpayer ripoff similar to the junk mail ripoff.

I mostly just get junk mail, magazines, bills, and political stuff so that would not come in very handy. And Netflix but I can tell when those have been sent.

If the USPS really wants to provide something useful, they should scan the junk mail before it arrives, and let you tell them to not put it in your mailbox. Junk mail is a waste of time, labor, energy, and taxpayer money.

I suspect the marketing guys who track that stuff might disagree....just because you don't take that key to the car dealer doesn't mean nobody does. When direct mail stops working it will stop, when spam in your email stops working it will stop, when unsolicited calls to your phones stops working it will stop. Until then, it will continue to show up and they will continue to pay USPS for teir services, not the taxpayer.

The marketers don't pay anywhere near the actual cost to deliver junk mail. The taxpayers pay most of the cost. Have you ever wondered why you never receive junk mail from fedex or ups? Junk mail is a taxpayer ripoff.

Where we use to live we though some neighbor hood kids were picking up mail from homes that looked like their might be some cash. The service would help in those cases.

I have not yet moved to TV and live in a community where management does the mail sorting. Mail is received on past residents that have been gone for 10 years plus. Mgmt spends alot of time trying to remove people, send back mail but junk mail for old residents keeps on coming.

On a positive note, why not? The service is free. It is not an extra cost to the USPS (Other than signing you up) since they already scan the mail to sort it. If it proves to be of no value, you can opt out.

Of interest though, the USPS is somewhat confirming that free EMAIL works better than snail mail.

Thinking ahead, what if you could just delete the unwanted USPS mail electronically?

There is a separate sign up for notification of Priority Mail delivery at the USPS website.

I signed up for informed mail and package notifications, but did not see anything specifically about priority mail notification. Am I missing something?

My composter and shredder stay very busy with any junk mail I can add to it.

Hang on to that thought :)

Well said.
PS...... The USPS is not government funded.

USPS lost 16 billion dollars in 2012 alone. Who do you think paid for that cash flow shortage?

Actually they borrow the money, usually from the government.

Can't argue that they are in debt, but they did have quite a few profitable years.

Part of the reason for the debt is restrictions that are placed on them by congress.

Such as stopping the closing of very small post offices.

And we still have 6 day delivery although USPS proposed going to 5 days.

And delivery to some areas so remote the carrier uses a boat. Or drives 50 miles to make 5 deliveries. Most other carriers either stop those types of delivery or charge a surcharge. Congress has not allowed surcharges for the postal service.

BTW, at one time the postal service had over 900,000 employees.

Unfortunately they are a "kinda" government agency with many governmental restrictions.

I understand that the USPS doesn't want to include the cost for retiree pensions and health insurance in their operating budget, but this is a huge current and future expense that obviously should be counted in their budget. But, the point is, they deliver junk mail every day to almost every address in the country because they don't charge enough to pay for the actual cost. And, the taxpayers end up paying the cost and having to deal with junk in their mailbox every day. I think this absurd and should be stopped.

The topic of this thread is Informed Delivery. If you wish to discuss the funding of the USPS, or its budget decisions, please start a new thread. Future off optic posts will be deleted..

Moderator

I think if you owned a similar business you might look at this differently. The carrier is making the delivery everyday so why not have some less expensive advertising mail at the same time? Here is something I posted once before, to help you better understand "junk" mail:

You should sign up for the services that take you off of "junk" mail lists. The postal service is getting paid by the sender to deliver the mail, not by you. They are just doing what they get paid to do.

Also, keep in mind that advertisers only expect a 3-4% response on a direct mailing. So if they mail to 1000 people, you and 965 other people are tossing the ad.

One last thing, from the US Postal Service 2016 Fiscal Year Statement - tax dollars received: $ 0.


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New York, California, Pennsylvania, Florida