Informed Delivery - a free new USPS service

[larry]

We are signed up and it appears to be working great for us as our neighborhood has a centralized mailbox and it saves a trip once or twice a week.

Where I see great value in this is the ability to monitor elderly parents mail. My recently widowed MIL hasn't a clue about 1099's, etc. and this gives us the ability to be proactive to ensure that she doesn't toss or shred something.

 

[REWahoo]

I signed up a week ago, and received my first notification this morning. Two pieces of mail. One for the prior homeowner, the other a mis-address" whose mail I have been receiving for years.

If it is any consolation, my notification shows I'm getting our annual bills for our LTCI. That's a stress-inducer since the premiums have increased substantially in the past three years - up 50% in 2014 and up another 30% last year. Sigh...

 

[REWahoo]

We are signed up and it appears to be working great for us as our neighborhood has a centralized mailbox and it saves a trip once or twice a week.

We've had a rash of centralized mailbox burglaries over the past couple of years - all happening at night. Because of this we've tried to pick up our mail every day. This should allow us to know what's there so we can risk letting the thieves have the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes entry...

 

[Ready]

I signed up last week. Thanks to the OP for sharing this.

My first email came today. My Costco coupons are in the mail - woohoo!

And a letter from my congressman...which will go in the trash promptly upon receipt.

 

[littleb]

I signed up yesterday and received my first notification email today showing my junk mail. This is really helpful if it is accurate going forward.

However, I went on the USPS notification site and saw the mail delivery long before receiving the email. Email just now came through 2 1/2 hours after time on email delivery.

 

[ERD50]

I signed up yesterday and received my first notification email today showing my junk mail. This is really helpful if it is accurate going forward.

However, I went on the USPS notification site and saw the mail delivery long before receiving the email. Email just now came through 2 1/2 hours after time on email delivery.

So far, my emails have come through between 7-7:30 AM, long before the day's delivery. Our physical delivery is usually between 2:30-4:30 PM.

-ERD50

 

[GrayHare]

Informed Delivery lets the USPS earn extra money by selling your information. There are lots of companies that would love to know, for example, how many "Important Tax Documents" you receive.

 

[audreyh1]

I signed up last week. Thanks to the OP for sharing this.

My first email came today. My Costco coupons are in the mail - woohoo!

And a letter from my congressman...which will go in the trash promptly upon receipt.

I also got an email today that showed the Costco coupons.

 

[audreyh1]

Informed Delivery lets the USPS earn extra money by selling your information. There are lots of companies that would love to know, for example, how many "Important Tax Documents" you receive.

Good thing that very few of my financial documents are sent through the mail. I've set up electronic documents only everywhere I could.

 

[travelover]

Got an informed delivery notice of a Health and Human Services envelope and sure enough it was my Medicare card. Given how often the postal carrier messes up at this apartment complex, I was glad to have been alerted so I could be on the lookout.

My official notification of acceptance into Medicare went to my next door neighbor.

 

[Gotadimple]

Informed Delivery lets the USPS earn extra money by selling your information. There are lots of companies that would love to know, for example, how many "Important Tax Documents" you receive.

You know this statement bothered me. If the USPO can share addresses by regulation, then they don't need you to sign up so they can show you what's coming. They have your physical address and techniques to catalog what you get and from whom. Certainly they can sell output from the databases to third party mailers. Which they do, but long before Informed Delivery.

So I went here: https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/faq
Click on Privacy and Security, then on How Secure is Informed Delivery

And found this:
The Postal Service adheres to the privacy requirements of the Privacy Act established by the federal government which controls when and how the USPS shares personal information and limits the conditions in which that information can be disclosed externally to outside parties.

 

[GrayHare]

Good thing that very few of my financial documents are sent through the mail. I've set up electronic documents only everywhere I could.

I'm unsure if you are being sarcastic or not. Obviously, given the number of security breaches we're read about in the past few years, online data is probably even less secure.

 

[audreyh1]

I'm unsure if you are being sarcastic or not. Obviously, given the number of security breaches we're read about in the past few years, online data is probably even less secure.

The financial institutions have your data in electronic form whether you access it or not.

 

[GrayHare]

And found this:
The Postal Service adheres to the privacy requirements of the Privacy Act established by the federal government which controls when and how the USPS shares personal information and limits the conditions in which that information can be disclosed externally to outside parties.

The Privacy Act allows for some sharing of information. What's an outside party? Are companies that partner with USPS an "outside party"? What about, for example, Stamps.com? I don't know the answers, and finding out means delving into legal rulings and such, but laws/regulations like the Privacy Act typically have wiggle room.

 

[GrayHare]

The financial institutions have your data in electronic form whether you access it or not.

If there's a security breach, financial institutions generally have skin in the game. If there's a breach or outright data shaing at USPS "Who ya gonna call?"

 

[cathy63]

Informed Delivery lets the USPS earn extra money by selling your information. There are lots of companies that would love to know, for example, how many "Important Tax Documents" you receive.

The USPS is scanning your mail even if you don't sign up for Informed Delivery, so other than the email address that goes with your physical address, signing up doesn't really give them any new information about you than what they already have.

 

[audreyh1]

If there's a security breach, financial institutions generally have skin in the game. If there's a breach or outright data shaing at USPS "Who ya gonna call?"

They are scanning the mail anyway. This lets me see the scans. Anyone could fake an account and set up and see my mail if they did a little research and made some good guesses. At least now I already have an account set up and USPS will contact me at my current email address if someone else tries to change a password or email on my account.

And no, by signing up we didn't agree to any additional data collection or sharing with other parties.

Key aspects of our privacy policy include:
We do not sell or rent your personal information to outside parties.
We do not market other products or services to you without your consent.
We do not use web analysis tools (e.g., cookies) to identify you personally without your express consent.

http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/privacy-policy/welcome.htm

 

[mpeirce]

The USPS is scanning your mail even if you don't sign up for Informed Delivery, so other than the email address that goes with your physical address, signing up doesn't really give them any new information about you than what they already have.

Exactly. This is what's know as metadata. They collect all your phone call metadata too - who called whom and for how long. Email metadata too.

"Law enforcement" can access this when you [-]run for political office[/-] commit a crime.

 

[Sojourner]

I signed up for Informed Delivery a few days ago, and today's email digest contained three scans of letters I was supposedly receiving. Two were correct, and I got those. One was not my mail, though, and had nothing to do with me. It was from a country club in a nearby town to a landscaping company in another state. Very odd.

 

[MRG]

I signed up for Informed Delivery a few days ago, and today's email digest contained three scans of letters I was supposedly receiving. Two were correct, and I got those. One was not my mail, though, and had nothing to do with me. It was from a country club in a nearby town to a landscaping company in another state. Very odd.

You're debugging the application for the USPS.

 

[Golden sunsets]

Got my first email today. Thanks to the OP for bringing this to our attention. I also signed up to receive informed delivery of my 92 year old DM's mail(also mentioned by another poster). This will help as she has not received Champ VA insurance reimbursements three times over the past several years triggering lengthy reissuance claims that can take nine months. I suspect that the letters have been inadvertently thrown away.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

 

[littleb]

Thanks to the Op for posting this Informed Delivery information.

It seems like a great service to have the ability to see your mail before it is delivered. However, kinda creepy to know they scan all of our mail. I guess you can forward most bills via email but I am not sure if that is private either.

 

[Kimo]

This seems kind of interesting and normally I like this kind of new technology.

But -- I am struggling to see how this does anything for me.

Let's say I'm at home and I see at 10 AM what mail I am getting that day. So what? I can't really decide I won't go check the mailbox that day because there was nothing interesting in the images since it seems like you don't get an image of 100% of all mail.

And, let's say it is something important. We check our mail every day anyway. So, does it really help me to know a few hours in advance what I am getting?

Now, it would be interesting if I was traveling. But, again, I wonder how useful it is. I can't actually do anything with the images I see. If there was someone at my house or who could go get something urgent, then, maybe. But, usually if we aren't home then nobody is home.

What would be useful would be if you could do something with the mail. We have lived in our current house 5 years and we still get mail to the prior residents. We get a piece or two almost every week. We get so much of it that I bought a stamp saying Not At This Address Return to Sender and I just stamp the mail when it is delivered and put it back in the box. I would love to be able to turn back that mail so I didn't have to deal with it...

I think each individual will have different needs. It is a mile to the edge of my property where the mail box is, how nice to know whether to go down to pick up the mail or not!

 

[Ready]

Or let's say you get an email showing an envelope with a check in it, but then the mail shows up and the check is not there. At least you know it was issued and may have been lost or stolen.

I've had a few credit cards mailed to me that were stolen as well, so it's good to know they were on their way to me.

 

[audreyh1]

Wow - I had four letters scanned this morning