Help Me
Okay, so I got this in an email today from the United States Postal Service. Go take a look. It says you can see your mail before it arrives. I assume they mean the outside of the envelope.
Okay, so what keeps Boris in Moscow from seeing my mail? Or Crazy Fred down the street so he’ll know exactly when my Ladies Home Journal arrives? I mean, couldn’t I just get an account at anybody’s address and spy on them?
Has anybody else got this figured out?
To be honest, my thinking mechanism is running on fumes lately. I need a new president.
I have Informed Delivery. They do have verification procedures. I actually had to go to the post office and provide photo
1ID.
Thanks, Tricia. I hate it when somebody steals my Ladies Home Journal.
2I don’t want that, I don’t need that, so I’m not signing up.
3OT: From the local RWNJ rag, an amazingly fitting analogy [note the [truncated] article’s last two words, the ‘*’= my edit]–
https://www.wilsoncountynews.com/articles/trump-tractor-rally-draws-spectators-more-than-100-vehicles-in-karnes-county/
” ‘Trump Tractor Rally’ draws spectators, more than 100 vehicles in Karnes County
October 20, 2020
More than 100 vehicles strong, a “Trump Tractor Rally” makes its way through Karnes County Oct. 17, from the Karnes County Show Barn in Kenedy, through Karnes City, and north to Falls City. Sean O’Brien, who organized the event with Tracy Jendrusch, said the parade included 85 tractors and 35 trucks with trailers and ***bull haulers***. …”
BULL HAULERS!! I can’t add a damned thing to those last two words.
4I find “Informed Delivery” very helpful. My community mailbox isn’t convenient so I don’t go there unless something in the mail is esp. appealing. Also, it helps me keep a sharp eye out for incoming bills, bank statements, and the like which are often mixed in with various flyers/ads.
5With all the inefficiency, overwork, exhaustion and stress at post offices these days thanks to Trump’s minion, whatsisname, how can they add something like this? I wouldn’t trust it either, and anyway of late, walking up to my mailbox is the big event of the day.
However, I was delighted with my postal carrier (postperson?) who actually walked down the driveway and hand delivered my absentee ballot to me a couple weeks ago.
6Have been using it for close to 2 years. In the good ole days(when the local post office was using automation to route the mail to the correct delivery truck) it was very useful in it would scan the outside of every piece of mail prior to delivery to the driver. Not so much in the past couple of months, MOST days I will get a message “mailpieces that we do not have an image for are included in today’s mail”
7a gotcha is occasionally I get pure spam where it gives me the opportunity to fill my email box with tons of garbage/spam
I signed up for this a while back. I’m betting it’s fully automated as the only images I receive are of mail that will actually go through the mechanized sorting process. Flyers, magazines and boxes aren’t imaged. It’s kinda like when you used to get images of cancelled checks after the banks quit returning them. Before online banking was a thing.
It usually works ….. unless you use a temporary forwarding address.
8I’ve had “informed delivery” for months if not years, and like Alan In Austin, I appreciate it, especially since I don’t feel obligated to check the mail every day. It doesn’t show junk mail, so I can pretty safely just let that sit.i got it back when I thought or government cared about us seniors, so I’m not at all outraged. And I’m putting my faith in Joe to food the mess–and I’m mad at Jeff for no not stepping up already.
9I have mixed feelings about informed delivery. If I’m not home I know what’s in the box (but these days I’m always home). On the other hand, picking up the mail was about the last excitement left for two retired people stuck at home.
10FWIW, I read recently that that corrupt tRump lackey Postmaster General DeJoy has put all the Postal Service Police on standdown, just before the elections.
11The PSP are charged with overseeing the integrity of the entirety of the US Postal systems [it is a huge corporate enterprise, from your mailbox, local PO, to their transport systems and handling centers].
Smart move, if one wants to facilitate all kinds of postal chicanery.
I’m sure it’ll come in right handy for the shifty-fingered neighbors of people who get their Social Security checks in their mailbox. Now they won’t have to hang around day after day waiting for the mailman to arrive — they’ll know when it’s due.
With any luck, though, De Joy’s policies will see to it that it’s late. Foiled again!
12Living in northern Wisconsin the Informed Delivery service is a blessing. I can decide if I need to get winter clothes on or just sit in my chair and look out at the road.
I like the fact it tracks packages and lets me know when to watch for deliveries.
13I signed up during my move from Maui to Maryland, because for a while we had mail going to several addresses. Now that the mailbox is a quarter-mile away I use it to time my trips — do I go early for the newspapers and late for the mail, or just one or the other?
Mikey is right about the scanning. Junk mail doesn’t show up. Magazines neither. And although there is a section to alert for packages, I’ve never had a package alert.
t is almost impossible to get a Social Security check by mail; the gummint wants to do electronic transfer.
14As long as you choose a safer password than Trump used for his Twitter account (maga2020!) you should be OK. The guy who thought he’d try and guess took all of 5 tries:
https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/22/dutch-hacker-trump-twitter-account-password/
15We live in a rural area in Hawaii and have been using the USPS Informed Delivery for a couple years. The mail isn’t delivered to houses here but is instead delivered to cluster boxes throughout our area which in our case are two miles away. The ability to check on whether it’s worth a trip to the mailbox is very helpful. Aloha
16I was able to sign up, for the program using my per-existing USPS account. The post office sent a letter to my home address informing me that I was signed-up for the service. That letter contained a “kill” code I could use to delete the service if I was not the one requesting it! I find it useful to know if I can expect mail. Picture of letter size items only. Excludes ad circulars and Mag subscriptions.
17It’s not like the outside of your mail is invisible. It is seen by lots of people as it goes from the sender to you. They just scan the envelopes and other stuff of suitable size and send you the pictures. I like it. I know if I’m getting mail that I need to get to before someone robs the mailbox, or just junk, or whatever. I definitely think it’s worth using.
18We’ve had Informed Delivery for a year and a half. Signed up when we moved, then when my MIL died and we had her mail forwarded to us. So now we get two emails every day. Same information. (I thought the second one would be just for her mail.) ID doesn’t show everything though so we still pick up our mail every day. It’s just a one minute walk across the street.
19I’ve used it for a few years and find it quite handy. Authentication uses the standard fed process. They verify you through a credit bureau. If you, like I do, have a freeze on your credit files then that doesn’t work and you have to go to a post office with identifying documents.
For the more paranoid out there, if your credit files are not frozen then you should sign up for ID to keep someone else from beating you to it and knowing what they might grab from your mailbox. (But you really should freeze your credit report reports.)
20I know what you’re saying, but the world can’t see what you’re seeing as far as I can tell. I live in a large complex and our mail is put in a lockbox where we have to get it in a central location. I loved Informed Delivery because it’s the difference between walking all the way there for nothing and/or knowing when you get something you have been waiting for. The “junk” mail is the stuff that isn’t displayed. Or they have a “another piece of mail for which there is no picture.” (translation…. junk!)
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