USPS Informed Delivery rarely shows anything lately

[RunningBum]

I like our local PO. A number of years ago we started seeing mail in wrong boxes. I heard this was because the carrier had a head injury, but he eventually retired. The next one and the current one are really good. Very few mistakes. If I have a package too big to fit in one of the lockers they call and ask if I went it left there or pick it up at the PO. She's handled a couple other exception cases for me very well. This is a tiny rural PO, and I'm sure they don't scan there.

 

[cathy63]

...
One of the emails says there's a piece of mail they don't have an image for. The other four show a USPS job ad under Mail (doesn't look like a scanned image and I don't get this in the actual mail)...

Like this? I think the advertising is a new thing they're doing. I expect we'll actually get no mail today despite the (2) next to Today. The piece counts for the other days were correct, although Friday had two with no images.

edit: So we actually did get an ad from Thistle in the mail. It's different than the image on the dashboard though. We also got the voter information pamphlet for the upcoming election from the state and the continuing education pamphlet from the local community college, neither of which was on the dashboard.

 

[ivinsfan]

I like our local PO. A number of years ago we started seeing mail in wrong boxes. I heard this was because the carrier had a head injury, but he eventually retired. The next one and the current one are really good. Very few mistakes. If I have a package too big to fit in one of the lockers they call and ask if I went it left there or pick it up at the PO. She's handled a couple other exception cases for me very well. This is a tiny rural PO, and I'm sure they don't scan there.

Does your zip end in a 9, I heard once the 9 means end of the road. I suspect our mail gets scanned in MSP...sometimes local local letters don't get on the daily email but that's to be expected.

 

[ivinsfan]

Like this? I think the advertising is a new thing they're doing. I expect we'll actually get no mail today despite the (2) next to Today. The piece counts for the other days were correct, although Friday had two with no images.

I think they make money off those and that's fine. I see them more often now.

 

[Aerides]

I get lots of junk mail scanned to informed delivery. The weekly grocer sales are never scanned but the endless stream of realtor ads always are, along with the requests for donations.

I notice days where there is nothing scanned but mail is still delivered. Usually 100% junk, not always. It doesn’t happen often enough to track, but it definitely happens.

it depends on the class of mail used. Delivery or bulk mail, usually not scanned (magazines for example), but more targeted addressed stuff will be, including first class and up. I can't remember the time I got a legit piece of mail like a bill or letter that wasn't included in the scans for the day.

 

[RunningBum]

Like this? I think the advertising is a new thing they're doing. I expect we'll actually get no mail today despite the (2) next to Today. The piece counts for the other days were correct, although Friday had two with no images.

Yes, that first one. One other one 3 or 4 weeks back.

 

[RunningBum]

Does your zip end in a 9, I heard once the 9 means end of the road. I suspect our mail gets scanned in MSP...sometimes local local letters don't get on the daily email but that's to be expected.

I'm a 7.

 

[REWahoo]

I'm a 7.

Me, too - but DW is a 10.

 

[braumeister]

Does your zip end in a 9, I heard once the 9 means end of the road.

Sounds like an urban myth to me. For example, I grew up in NYC which had 2-digit "zones" long before the ZIP (Zone Improvement Plan) was implemented. Ours ended in 9, and we were nowhere near the edge of the city. They simply put a three-digit code in front of our zone so our ZIP became a 5-digit number ending in 9.

Interestingly, I have a friend who used to live in an Ohio town that has AFAIK the only place with a repeating zip code: 44444.

 

[ivinsfan]

Sounds like an urban myth to me. For example, I grew up in NYC which had 2-digit "zones" long before the ZIP (Zone Improvement Plan) was implemented. Ours ended in 9, and we were nowhere near the edge of the city. They simply put a three-digit code in front of our zone and our ZIP became a 5-digit number ending in 9.

Interestingly, I have a friend who used to live in an Ohio town that has AFAIK the only place with a repeating zip code: 44444.

I don't know if it's urban legend or not but our zip serves less then 500 people so it makes a good story.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

It's only for mail that gets scanned. Not junk type mail

Oh, we get plenty of junk mail that is scanned. There are size limitations, however. Two pieces for us today.

No issues with ours. Sometimes it will be delivered the following day, but that's the rare exception.

Also, the ads you see on occasion are called "digital mailings". From the USPS FAQs:

Users receive emails to the email address in their personal USPS.com® account containing grayscale images of the exterior, address side of up to 10 pieces of incoming letter-sized mail that is arriving soon. These images are also accessible on the Informed Delivery dashboard at informeddelivery.USPS.com. Only the first 10 pieces of mail appear in the email at this time. The remaining mail images can be viewed on your dashboard. This measure helps limit the size of emails being sent to users.

Additionally, participating mailers can supplement their digital mailpiece with a clickable and interactive color image below the grayscale image, or provide an image to replace the grayscale image. This functionality is also available for packages. Shippers can supplement package information provided by Informed Delivery with a clickable and interactive color image. Users are able to click either the ride-along image or the "Learn More " button to access the mailer's digital content.

https://faq.usps.com/s/article/Informed-Delivery-The-Basics

 

[braumeister]

I don't know if it's urban legend or not but our zip serves less then 500 people so it makes a good story.

In that case maybe it falls in the category of rural legend?

 

[ivinsfan]

Sounds like an urban myth to me. For example, I grew up in NYC which had 2-digit "zones" long before the ZIP (Zone Improvement Plan) was implemented. Ours ended in 9, and we were nowhere near the edge of the city. They simply put a three-digit code in front of our zone so our ZIP became a 5-digit number ending in 9.

Interestingly, I have a friend who used to live in an Ohio town that has AFAIK the only place with a repeating zip code: 44444.

We all know NYC is special...

 

[ivinsfan]

Oh, we get plenty of junk mail that is scanned. There are size limitations, however. Two pieces for us today.

No issues with ours. Sometimes it will be delivered the following day, but that's the rare exception.

We don't get scans of stuff like that...

 

[braumeister]

We all know NYC is special...

Well, in my case it's a great place to be from.
Loved it while growing up (no cracks, please) but never going back.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

In that case maybe it falls in the category of rural legend?

I see what you did there. Here is a good summary.

https://www.businessinsider.com/what-do-zip-codes-mean-2015-6

The first digit designates a broad area, which ranges from zero for the Northeast to nine for the far West.
The two following digits are the code of a central post office facility in that region.
The last two digits designate small post offices or postal zones.

 

[ivinsfan]

Well, in my case it's a great place to be from.
Loved it while growing up (no cracks, please) but never going back.

It's good to love the place you grew up in. I never had a place like that (army brat) and I think it would have been cool.

 

[ivinsfan]

I see what you did there. Here is a good summary.

https://www.businessinsider.com/what-do-zip-codes-mean-2015-6

So I'm a 9 which might mean I'm the smallest PO in that cluster,

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

We don't get scans of stuff like that...

Hmm. That's odd. You would think that the scanners would be pretty universal. Then again, it IS the government...so...

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I have "tested" our zip code. We live in a different city than the post office that services our address. So, our mailing address is the city of the post office. I have seen this in unincorporated areas, but I haven't seen this when you live in city A but the mailing address is city B.

Sometimes, contractors don't want to come out because they think we live in the city that is our mailing address (which isn't convenient to the highway). I have to almost ALWAYS mention that we are within a couple of miles of the interstate and to ignore our mailing address.

Anyway, I have tested the mail using the correct zip code and ACTUAL (but wrong as far as the USPS is concerned) city and got the mail in one day. I then tried using the wrong zip AND wrong city (I used a zip that is closest to us but in the correct city) and got it two days later.

It's an interesting system and considering how complex it is, I am impressed that they tend to get most of it right.

 

[braumeister]

our mailing address is the city of the post office. I have seen this in unincorporated areas, but I haven't seen this when you live in city A but the mailing address is city B.

It can be a bit confusing at times. Our last house was in an unincorporated area of county A but our zip code was shared with part of county B and that was actually in a sizable city.

Since the two counties had different sales tax rates, it was sometimes tricky to get online orders correct. Interestingly, Apple was first -- they figured it out immediately and always offered me a dropdown menu to pick my county after I entered the zip code. Other online merchants eventually followed suit.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

It can be a bit confusing at times. Our last house was in an unincorporated area of county A but our zip code was shared with part of county B and that was actually in a sizable city.

Since the two counties had different sales tax rates, it was sometimes tricky to get online orders correct. Interestingly, Apple was first -- they figured it out immediately and always offered me a dropdown menu to pick my county after I entered the zip code. Other online merchants eventually followed suit.

Yep. Our taxes are also messed up with this, but the % difference isn't worth the fight.

My SIL lives in the same city as we do, but is in another county and has the same issue with mailing city being different (even different for us). She didn't even realize she was a resident of the city until she tried to get trash service established...and she has lived here for almost 30 years. I think the biggest issue is that "big city" has annexed WAY TOO much land so it only adds to the confusion.

 

[ocean view]

So I'm a 9 which might mean I'm the smallest PO in that cluster,

In our area I’ve noticed that the 4th & 5th digits are assigned alphabetically to the smaller cities within the region (for example the SF Bay Area). Larger cities, like SF get their own region (the 3rd digit of the five).

I just found this website that lists zip codes by state, county and city:

https://www.zip-codes.com/state/ca.asp

 

[Kerfuffle]

Yep, the accuracy of our informed delivery has not been great in the last few months (I've been signed up for a couple of years at least). Lately I find things that I wasn't notified of, not junk mail which they don't send images of, but legit mail. Just yesterday there was something from the DMV that I wasn't notified of, and a couple of days ago there was a check from a client which I also never got an email for. I'd put it at maybe 80% accuracy where it used to be at 100% very consistently.

 

[braumeister]

In our area I’ve noticed that the 4th & 5th digits are assigned alphabetically to the smaller cities within the region

Probably reasonable for later additions (new suburbs, etc.), but I think it was pretty random in the beginning.

For example, the five boroughs of NYC:
100xx, 101xx, 102xx Manhattan
103xx Staten Island
104xx Bronx
110xx, 111xx, 113xx, 114xx, 116xx Queens
112xx Brooklyn