Postal Mixup

[Kanalah]

I've had somewhat of a problem with the mailman delivering the wrong mail to my house. You see, they built a shopping center near my neighborhood, and one of the offices shares the same house # as me. So if my address is 123 fake street, this office's address is 123 fake lane. So we get a lot of their mail. I cannot just put the mail back in the mailbox with the flag up because the mailman will just shove the new mail on top. So at least a year of getting their professional magazines, bills, online shopping shipments, checks, and even a prescription drug delivery. So I gather up all their mail and drive it back to the post office and put it in the box. It's about a 50% chance that it will end up in my mailbox again. We got the same shipment of checks 3 times before they got it right.

But today - today was special. Today I received bills from 2 different companies - addressed to the people at this business - with my address on them.

Good thing I was already planning on going to the post office tomorrow. (to mail my Christmas cards!)

[XCashier]

You really should speak to the local postmaster about the mix-up. That's the only way this will get resolved.

It might help it you use your zip + 4 on all of your correspondence, too.

[NecessaryCatharsis]

We got a new post office worker last year (small town, one post office worker), and while the post office is rarely open, it is never locked, so we can just go in an open our individual post boxes. I used to get mail addressed to someone else once every week or two. Now well over half the mail is for other people (plural - it's not always the same wrong person). I have talked to her a few times, without effect. I'm sure other people have too. About 8 months ago someone put a large box in the post office, for mis-delivered mail. So you would open your PO Box, sort your mail, put the wrong pieces into the cardboard box, then sort through the box for the rest of your mail. Inconvenient, no?

Someone put expanding files in a couple months ago. They are labeled in each slot 1-20, 21-40, 41-60 etc. Now when mail is mis-delivered we can sort it so the recipient can find it easier, and when you are looking for your mis-delivered mail you only have to go through twenty peoples worth, instead of 300 peoples worth.

If complaints aren't getting positive results you may have to implement a system for yourselves that works. Some people are truly incapable or unwilling to do their jobs properly.

[EricKei]

It may also be a good idea to advise the company to add their 4-digits to the ZIP, as well. Heck, they might not be aware that you've been getting some of their mail, and for all you know, they've been getting some of YOURS...o_O;

Call the local Postmaster about this. He/she will know whose butt to light a fire under -- *especially* in light of that misdelivered prescription. That could open the doorway to all sorts of bad shit if it's not corrected.

As for just putting mail back in the box with the flag -- write/stamp "PLEASE FORWARD" and add something like "LANE, not STREET" to them, to make it clear what's wrong. Or, just write RTS (return to sender) along with the latter part. Junk mail and periodicals will just get tossed, but real first class mail will get properly returned. Usually.

[Trixie]

Where I grew up the address was the same as a jewlery store in the next town over. Sometimes we'd get mail for them and I'm sure sometimes they'd get mail for us. There were only a couple of times that I remember were the mixup was an annoyance. One time I guess it was a salesman was taking a case out of his car and was looking for the store. Well, my area was residental even though it was a major city street. I happen to be outside playing and told the guy to hit up the address in the next town over. And the worst one of all (to me) was having a video game I was waiting for delivered to them by UPS and I had to wait before I could start to play. More funny than a nuisance though.

[Kara]

A couple things I can help with, especially since December is pure madness for the postal service. Using a zip+4 isn't going to help. It helps me to tell the sorting machines how to code the mail for delivery, but you are getting mail that has been properly encoded and sorted (at least, mechanically sorted). It's just the individual employees at your post office putting the mail for Fake Ln in the same stack as your mail at Fake St, and then the mail carriers aren't bothering to double check it before putting it in your mailbox.

Also, if you really want to make sure something gets properly RTS'd, it's best to take it to the post office and have them put an RTS label on it. I'm not honestly sure how it works in the plants, but when I get a mail image on my screen that doesn't have the official RTS label on it, I cannot process it as return to sender. I am required to key the destination address. If it's just hand-written, crossed out, blacked out, anything else, I still can't key the sender's info. The only written reason I can use to process RTS without a label or printed short code is "deceased," otherwise my hands are tied.

I can key ALL hand-written forwarding addresses (I honestly don't know why this is acceptable but hand-written RTS messages are not. Yay bureaucratic red tape I guess). The only issue in your case is that your post office isn't paying attention to "St" vs "Ln," so they'd probably just forward it back to you.

Definitely talk to your local postmaster.

[EricKei]

Kara -- good to know. Thanks!

I've never had an issue with handwritten RTS being unacceptable before, but I can count the times I've needed to do it on one hand, and it's been many years o_O Maybe things have changed since then?

As for sorting -- yeah, that can be an issue -- I used to work at a "Chandler job," processing mailout databases for a printing company. Part of my job was being able to doublecheck that the barcodes underneath the addresses were accurate (is uses a mutated form of binary; it's been over a decade, so I've forgotten the exact scheme now). Those numbers, which were required for Automated-type mail discounts to work, only really cared about the first few digits of the street NUMBER and the ZIP code -- an accurate scan (whether by a person or by a computer) was still required to differentiate things like ST vs LN...and if they were in the same ZIP code, yeah, it would fall to the postal workers to get them right.

[TheSHAD0W]

If you want help, contact the fire department. No, I'm serious.

If a new development has adopted a street name that is too similar to another name, this is a public safety problem. After all, if police or fire crews are dispatched to the wrong location, it can result in loss of life or property damage. So emergency services will require the street name to be changed.

[Kara]

I don't think anything has changed, it's just that when you write "RTS" and put it back in your mailbox, the crew at the local post office is supposed to print a label to put on it. If they don't, which is often the case, when it gets run through the sorters again, it will kick the image to the encoding center because it's looking for a label or the printed code that tells it the reason for being returned. So it comes up on my screen with no label or code, and per policy I can only rekey the destination address code if it's still readable, or reject it for manual processing if it's been completely marked out. It's not that the employees at the post office are lazy, they just only have so much time to get things done and sent out and little things get missed.

[Kanalah]

Oh Hubs reminded me that last year they catered a holiday party for the employees at this business. Guess where the food and caterers showed up?

[MadMike]

Every so often, I get something for what I'm guessing is a travel agency in Canada somewhere, sent from somewhere in Indiana. The street name is similar to mine, but it's not even the right country.

I ended up taking it to the post office this time. They crossed out the bar code, and said something about how my town's bar code is getting used somehow.

[Kanalah]

I honestly don't think they're getting any of our mail/packages. We've lived in this house for 7 years and the shopping center's only a year old.

The postal guys pretty much just read "123 fake..." and bring it to my house. So far this month I've gotten; a trade newspaper, patient records (this business is a dr's office) pharmacy rep letters to the 3 doctors that work there, 2 zulilly shipments and the 2 letters to the RN with her name and our address.

[Gizmo]

Had this today for the road one over from me.... 123 My Road and 123 Their Road... literally its only the house number the same. Luckily that doesn't happen too often...

[EricKei]

Having patient records arrive at your house could get them (hopefully not you...*crosses fingers*) in SERIOUS trouble, as any violation of patient confidentiality has a good chance of being HIPPA violation.

Perhaps taking these over to the medical office (along with any misdelivered meds you've yet to throw out) could get them to wake up -- as a business that likely has a large volume of mail/packages shipped in and out, they probably have more clout with the USPS -- It's ultimately the post office's responsibility (no offense to our posties here, nothing personal ) to see to it that the records/meds go to the right place (exception: unless they really DID have your address on some of them), but the blame will also fall upon the medical office if they fail to make a serious effort to correct these issues once they've been informed. The office will likely have at least one person who has been drilled in HIPPA procedures until they see them in their dreams (we had doctor's offices back when I worked at the accounting firm, and we were even asked to sign NDA's on occasion); they take this stuff very seriously.

Send the medical office a Signature-confirmation letter (meaning, if THAT gets delivered to you, you can refuse it and tell the carrier why, in person), and ask them what they want you to do with the records/meds (give 'em yer phone# or email, as snailmail might not work...); once the USPS website says that delivery has taken place, just call them if they haven't contacted you.

If the office doesn't at least try to do something about it once you tell them...well...Let's just say that the Federal government has a website for that. If need be, you will have that Sig'd letter you sent, proof that you sent it, and proof that they received it, showing that YOU have made a concerted effort to maintain patient confidentiality.

[Kanalah]

Generally I just drive everything back to the post office and remail it. With the medication, I hand delivered it to the Dr's office. I told the receptionist that we have been getting their mail. She laughed and shrugged it off with a "what'cha gonna do?"