USPS "marketing mail" and forwarding
 

This is a specific question if anyone knows what happens to all the junk/marketing mail if you select mail forwarding service?

I fully understand that you can pay $24+ per month to have everything forwarded. I also use their "informed delivery" scan to email service.

The usual forwarding service (up to a year) will forward all 1st class and priority mail....

BUT ..what happens to the rest? Returned to sender? Delivered to other address? Curious.


Saw previous thread here about "snowbird mail"

Ref: 507 Mailer Services | Postal Explorer

I do not fully understand your questions. 1. The postal service does not charge for mail forwarding ($24)? You maybe talking about getting a temp mail service (aka, PO Box for $24) and have your USPS mail forwarded to there? I would just straight forward your mail to your temp residence here in TV? If you’re renting most landlords will allow this. 2. As far as the junk mail, who cares what happens to it as long as you don’t get it (if I understand your question?). I know the PO box service I had said they could return to sender if that helps.

We are here 5 years and still get mail, junk mail for the previous owner

As I recall, mail with "standard" postage (junk mail) is not forwarded, just discarded.

That is what I do, usually before I leave the property.

Only first class mail is forwarded. Junk mail is discarded.

Used to use "premium " forwarding service. Had trouble many times so I quit.
I once received a person's mail from our town up north, he was in Tampa for the winter. My mail was never found that week. I goggled his name and called him to see if he got my mail, no luck. My upnorth PO was notified and they were shocked that I found a way to contact him. DEEfund the PO.

I concur.

It gets shredded.

Based on our current experience, 1st class mail is forwarded for a year, magazines for 6 months, and junk mail piles up in our old house mailbox. We have someone clean it out occasionally.

They only forwarded 1st class mail. Not the junk mail.

I discussed the premium service that you mention with my local post office. With that service, they take every piece of your mail (junk and all) and put it in a mailer and mail it to you every week or two weeks, I forget which.

For just regular mail forwarding, the junk mail stays behind.

What we do is a change of address for the first class mail we normally get, plus forwarding for the rest of our first class mail (like Christmas cards). I keep a list of the change of address notifications with the date I did it plus the method (online, phone call, if there's a long lead time (magazine subscriptions). Some take more than one call (like Citizens First Bank). We put a physical note in each of our mailboxes telling the carrier not to put any mail in the box. (They have a better handle on that here than up north.) That way those pieces eventually get forwarded.

We do NOT do a change of address for Social Security and Medicare. We tried that our first year here and kept getting monthly letters that we needed to change our Social Security office and Medicare plan. We'd call each of them, tell them we were still residents up north and just in Florida for the winter, and they'd say, Okay, we understand. Then we'd get the same letter the next month and repeat the process. So we let anything from those agencies just get forwarded to us.

This is the method that works best for us. But you have plenty of options to see what works best for you.

Marketing mail gets tossed/shredded
 

Hi all,
Thanks for the replies.

1) Yes, you only PAY for forwarding if you ask the USPS to forward EVERYTHING. No charge for forwarding only 1st class mail. So, when we return to Northern home, I will turn on standard forwarding so that our Villages mailbox doesn't get crammed full of junk.

2) I was really interested in what they do with the "marketing mail". Does it get discarded by the USPS or does it go back to the source so they can delete us from their mailing list (saves trees in the future)..Oh well.

Lastly, getting the "Informed Delivery" e-mail is still worth it to get a scan of all pieces. But so much is now done electronically, the USPS future is in jeopardy.

Junk mail senders do not seem to care about updating mailing lists. Bunch of companies send us stuff monthly that gets tossed and they do not seem to review mail that offers no business.

My Mother gets invitations for lunches. They have you listen to their "pitch" for the meal. The invitations come to our house here so my wife and I now take advantage of lunches since Mom can't attend.....she died in 2002.

Just a side note, all the non USPS companies started by taking the " profitable"!! mailing (no junk mail) which made them profitable(rich) & the junk mail (less profitable) stayed with the USPS. Politicians involved ? maybe?

No idea how this happened but never should have.

Undelivered junk mail is not shredded. They cram it in my mailbox.