Learning the US Postal System

[H. John Kohl]

I used my buddy's address to receive packages. So it was name, street and city and zip. Well my package was returned insufficient address. What the heck the street address is the address of the mail box. Wrong.
Out here in rural NV they use PO Box and every one has to pick up the mail there. Two out of four items made it with notes "PO needed". So lesson learned. This rural town every one knows everyone except when the substitute is working.


Ask your host what the street address is as well as what is your mailing address if you intend on packages being mailed there. USPS and UPS are different.

Safe Travels.

[8.1al]

Frustrating isn't it John? It couldn't have taken much effort on their part to figure out the PO box number.When using someone elses address make sure it is addressed to you in care of them. We have had mail returned because we didn't do this

[DQDick]

We just had UPS do the same thing where we are working and then want us to come pick up the package 40 miles away due to their mistake.

[bullroc3]

Welcome to rural America!! Until recently, our area was all PO Boxes, RR's, and Star Routes. Our Address was P.O. Box 105. We live in a small town and pick up our mail at our local post office - a 5 minute walk. It worked well except for deliveries of packages from UPS and FEDEX. Shippers would not deliver to a post office box so I adopted, on my own, the address of 105 School Street. That worked most of the time unless the shipper checked the address and found that there was no such address. BUMMER!! (If you see me at a rally, I will relay the story of ordering cell phones on the internet!!!) We recently underwent a 911 re-addressing in our county. Now we have a physical address but it is not our mailing address since we have a PO Box. If you send mail to my physical address, it may not arrive. If you ship a package to my mailing address, it may not arrive. Confused yet?? So, we now use the physical address followed by the PO Box. Problem solved.

RANT

Then there was the mail box vs the PO Box snafu. Rural route carriers deliver mail along rural roads and deposit it in a mail box for free but you own the box. Everyone in town was charged a fee for a PO Box rental at the local post office but back a few years, the fee was waived but only for individuals that choose to pick up their mail at the post office because if a rural carrier goes past your house, you must put out a mailbox to get your mail. If they choose to pick it up at the post office, they must rent the post office box. There is a rural carrier that delivers the mail to a nearby elderly housing unit. He leaves the post office, makes a left turn and a right turn to get to the housing unit, a distance of less than two tenths of a mile. All the houses whose front doors he passes on the wayto the housing unit had to put up a mail box or pay to pick up their mail at the post office. Four of my neighbors must pay for their box. Since he technically does not pass our front door, we get a free box.

But then yesterday, Judy walked down to the post office to get our mail at 11:00 am which is the time the mail is usually in our boxes only to find the door locked. Yesterday was the first day of the new schedule for our post office - 1230 pm to 430 pm!! No more 8 to 5 due to cutbacks. So it goes.

[DQDick]

That's bad enough, but what's going to happen when the rural post offices close?

[DonandBonnie]

Anybody wonder why we do everything possible to avoid using the post office? I've lost so many checks in the mail that I now write an expiration date in the memo section of the check.

[bullroc3]

quote:Originally posted by DQDick

That's bad enough, but what's going to happen when the rural post offices close?

Drones?

[mlh]

I send thousands of packages through the post office and in 20 years have had only 2 that got lost. I had a man send us a package from Florida with my name, Harrells Precision and his address on. It 3 days for me to get the package in Virginia. I showed the package to the people in our post office. They just shook their heads. They had no idea how I got this package. The same old man, you know about my age, did the same thing again but this time no such luck I didn't get it this time.
Lynwood