Picking MailBox

[MrB]

MIT, it is in fact true. Postal regulations state that only postmarked items of US Mail may put put in someone's mailbox. Fedex, for example, are not allowed to deliver a package to your mailbox, nor (generally) can newspapers be put in there, and in theory your friend from down the street is not allowed to drop off a birthday card. If the mailman does find prohibited items in your mailbox, the Post Office can in fact refuse to deliver your mail.

Ostensibly the reason for this is to make sure other packages don't fill up the box and leave no room for the regular mail, but in practice it is to preserve the United States Postal Service monopoly on mail delivery.

On the other hand, the mailman can fill your mailbox with all kinds of leaflets, magazines and other junk every day, and this mysteriously does not contravene any regulations whatever. Go figure.

[master in training]

sounds bad, in the UK the Royal mail, our version of USPS has to provide a postal service to every person in the UK by law, otherwise the government can fine them loads if you complain and you get compensation.

the only reason your postmen can leave junk in your mailbox is that USPS gets money to let them! otherwise it wouldnt be allowed, lol.

[MrB]

Of course the US Postal Service gets paid to deliver junk mail

Just to mention, I am British born and bred. I know all about the Royal Mail, and it's nice that they deliver post to your door. Over here, I have to walk up the street to collect my mail from a central mailbox.

[master in training]

oh ok, didnt know that

i wouldnt mind walking up the road for my mail too much if it meant i lived somewhere nice!

[assweasel]

So how is it if your personal mailbox belongs to the Postal service and tampering with it is a federal offense?? How then do kids in rural areas driving around smashing mailboxes never get charged with anything other than a misdameanor mischief????

[TAMUmpower]

Im assuming your talking about the mailboxes that have like 20 to a big panel. Either way, I got a chance to "legally" play with one of these once before a certain building was torn down. Every one was a 10 sec job with a C rake. (little squiggle)

[Raccoon]

Off topic.

If you are tired with junk mail, your postman understands and will work with you. On most postal routes, junkmail is added to your legitimate mail at the point of delivery, either in front of your door or at the street corner. If you place a simple sign "No junkmail, please" or something to that effect on your mailbox, they [usually] wont add junkmail to your mail.

If you own a cluster box, try and catch your postman when he's delivering and ask if he'd mark your box (on the inside) requesting no junkmail. I've had this done at every apartment complex I've lived.

If these don't work, simply refuse to empty the junkmail, leaflets and sales fliers from your mailbox. Your mailman will notice that you remove your regular mail daily, but the junk keeps piling up. One of my neighbors pulled that off successfully before I moved in-- paving the way for me to simply ask for no junkmail to be delivered.

[Octillion]

So how is it if your personal mailbox belongs to the Postal service and tampering with it is a federal offense?? How then do kids in rural areas driving around smashing mailboxes never get charged with anything other than a misdameanor mischief????

If it is a mail box that you did not personally buy (like boxes in an apartment, mail room, one of those big blocks with multiple boxes mounted between a row of houses), then you are only borrowing the box, it is not yours. If it is a duck shaped mail box you planted in front of your house, you can do whatever you want to it. Pick the duck, light it on fire, whatever you want.

It is a federal offence to tamper with any mail box that is not yours. Drive-by mail box smashing is a federal offence, and if the kids are caught, they can be charged as such.

[Legion303]

The post office does not OWN personal mailboxes.

This is not necessarily true. For rural routes in the United States, you can buy your own box and mount it yourself on your own property, and USPS can remove it or force you to move it at your expense if it doesn't meet their requirements for any reason. The box you bought and mounted with your own money and labor is federal property and it is a crime to even place anything in it that isn't mail delivered by a postal employee.

If it's your box on your property and you feel the urge to pick it, any charges pressed will *probably* not stick due to the circumstances, but I wouldn't take my chances, just because of the harsh penalties involved with carrying a postal arrow key when you're not a postal worker (follow my train of thought here...if you can pick an arrow key lock on your own box, then you can also pick any postal lock within your state and probably one or two surrounding states, and postal inspectors take a very dim view of this).

-steve

[bpc293]

i was puting menus in peoples mail boxes and the post office called me and told me it was agianst the law to tamper or put anything in a mail box because it belonged to them (the post office) and if i did it again i would be charged postage for every menu they found and posibly fined up to i cant remember the fine but it was a large amount. so they called me and told me it belonged to them. and i no the post office does not buy mail boxes for anyone around here.

[Shrub]

WHAT??? so you cant do a leaflet drop?? thats absolutely absurd, what a stupid rule,

I regulary go to a new area and spend an afternoon putting leaflets through every door, i post somthing like 1000 leaflets in an afternoon and get a few jobs from it.

[bpc293]

you said threw the door. postal people would never see them or in the door is ok. but in a mail box they told me no.

[Shrub]

Yes sorry we dont have mail boxes, our equivalent is a letter box thats a slot in the door, i see the differance but dont understand the rule

Who does the maintanence on them?
Who paints them?
Is it illegal to pain them then as well? it must be but on tv i see them all painted.

[bpc293]

yea you pay for it you do the up keep on it and they own it. thats sounds strange to me to but i did get that phone call from them. i pass out alot of flyers to. i'll go to there site and check it out. i really want to no what the law realy is. it does mean money. any where else i put the flyer people see junk. when they pull it out of the mail box they read it. and paying to hit a zip code cost some dough.