Section 1725 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code prohibits placing mailable materials like circulars and sales bills with unpaid postage in mailboxes with intent to avoid payment of postage. That means that the Chinese menus and offers for cheap lube jobs that end up in your mailbox might have been placed there illegally. One reader whose mailbox was clogged with this junk contacted the USPS to report the businesses. Her story, and the post office’s ambivalence, inside.
Our reader writes:
Three years ago I bought a house in NJ and moved into the new development. In the beginning, my mailbox was constantly getting stuffed with flyers and the like offering services such as cleaning, nanny, and contractor work. Knowing that it is illegal to place these materials inside a mailbox without a stamp (see Section 1725 of Title 18 of the United States Code), I asked via the USPS website whom I should be contacting in order to get these to stop coming to me. The response I got back the following day was to forward the matter to my local Post Office. I did exactly that, mailing the offending flyer with a letter to the local post office asking them to enforce Section 1725 of Title 18 of the United States Code. The amount of flyers received in my mailbox has since decreased, but everytime I got one in my mailbox, I would mail it with a letter again asking them to enforce Section 1725 of Title 18.
Several weeks ago, I got a knock on the door and it was a postal worker who had indicated that they have received the letters I had been sending them all along and to please stop. She admitted that they call the business in violation of Section 1725 and ask them not to do it again, but do nothing to really enforce it. It puzzles me why they even bother to establish this and layout penalties if no one is going to enforce them.
It puzzles us too. The USPS’s website (PDF) states: “Except under 2.11 [dealing with newspaper boxes attached to mailboxes], the receptacles described in 1.1 may be used only for matter bearing postage. Other than as permitted by 2.10 or 2.11, no part of a mail receptacle may be used to deliver any matter not bearing postage, including items or matter placed upon, supported by, attached to, hung from, or inserted into a mail receptacle.” Note that “door slots and nonlockable bins or troughs used with apartment house mailboxes” are excluded from this prohibition, and can be loaded up with as many flyers as they can hold. Although our reader was told to contact her local post office, there’s actually a specific form for these complaints on the U.S. Postal Inspection website. You can also try contacting the business directly and informing them that they are breaking the law.
Customer Mail Receptacles [USPS]
File a Complaint [United States Postal Inspection Service] (PDF)
Postage Unpaid On Deposited Mail Matter [United States Code]
(Photo: Jenna Belle)
More From Consumerist
-
Idaho State Police Ignoring Tastiness Of Bacon, Cracking Down On Infused Alcohol Drinks
-
FTC Says It’s Got 744 Ideas On How To Stop Robocalls & Turning Off The Phone Isn’t One
-
Professor Tries, Fails To Defend Payday Lending As Legitimate Form Of Credit
-
UPS Hit With $40 Million Settlement In Illegal Online Pharmacy Probe
-
Old Spice Shaves Off .25 Ounces Of Deodorant, Sells For Same Price…Or Does It?
@donkeyjote:
Even worse.
If they aren’t even enforcible at all, then why is the law on the books at all? The legislature ought to remove that law from the books.
How can an average citizen know what is legal and what isn’t when unenforcible laws are still on the books? The main reason for codifying laws is so the average citizen can know the law, and keeping these laws on the books would seem to nullify that principle.
@opsomath:
I direct you to Art. I, Sec. 8:
[...]
To regulate Commerce … among the several States
[...]
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads
[...]
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
That’s what the government would say. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine if the laws of which you speak are constitutional.
@SchuylerH: That’s what’s happened to us. ADVO and the other ad/flyer people have removed our address from their list but our postal carrier just throws somebody else’s ads with a totally different address on them in our mailbox.
I’d complain about that more, but I’m more concerned about the fact that they continue to drop mail for other people – not even on the same street! – in our mailbox. We’ve called to complain and have talked with all involved numerous times, but they really just don’t care.
I just wrapped my mailbox in duct tape. The post office delivers the mail to the P.O. Box and the flyer junkies waste a good minute of their time figuring out that they can’t remove the duct tape to insert their advertisements.
We have the same retarded mail carriers here in Juneau, AK. Most of them can’t read english, and do not understand what a name and a address is. On an almost daily basis, we get mail that belongs to another mailbox, or even to a person that does not live here any more.
For our first year at our current place, we recieved a new post office “persons at address” form every week, where we was supposed to fill out the name of everybody at this address. When asked what was it for, the response was, “So we can deliver the correct mail to this box”. We filled it out the first time, turned it in, and dumped the rest. Well, of course, the couriers are too stupid to do their own job, so we still get crap in the mail box.
The funny thing is, any person and business who need to contact us via mail, do so via our mailing address which is a PO Box. ANY mail we recieve on the resident box is thrown outside on the ground. Why?
For months, I have been placing the “mail” flag up whenever we recieve mail in the box, after awhile the courier was high on drugs, or got drunk, and start refusing correcting his mistake (ignoring the flag). I have filed numerous complaints to the local office, but the special couriers are still lazy SOBs.
Since the couriers refuse to do their job and deliver correct mail, and since it is illegal (due to criminal big wigs) to lock up said box, and it is illegal to take down my mail box I OWN due to the criminals, and the couriers refuse to pick up their screwed up fake mail. There’s only one option left.
Throw the mail on to the ground around the mail box. I was able to get the whole neighborhood to do the same thing. Now, every month, the retarded mail couriers gets on his hands and knees and picks up all the mail that litters the ground.
I have no respect nor pity for those kids (couriers). Since they refuse to do their job, they should have no expectations of rights from people on their routes. This, evidently, is one of the reasons the idiot refuses to move into the neighborhood, we would tear him to pieces.
Just remember, if the post office refuse to do their job, sue them, to force them to do their job.
As for people coming to the door, like the Jahova Witnesses, just keep a dog around. We have a nice fence with a latch, and a nice front yard. Every time I see one of those creeps around the corner, I let the dog loose. When they ask to come in, I always say, if you can keep the dog at bay, you are welcome to come in.
The dog I have is a real dog, not a little pocket pooch or toy dog. This one will bark and bite if the family is threatened. Most of thoe kiddies realized that and leave. One pair did try to come in and got his arm torned in to. When we ended up in court, who do you think won? We did.
The cost food, and maintaining a dog is extremely small compared to the benefits of protection and enforcing the law when the Police and Government refuses to do their job. Luckily, in Alaska, we have a few honest laws, called Castle Laws
If someone comes into my home to rob me, or even trespass, I can shot them dead, and it is 100% legal. It’s been tried and true in court. Most state law makers should have such laws …
I think some of you are missing a point there, and thus making a logically un-sound argument.
If USPS were to start enforcing the law in question, and if it were implemented properly, it’d look something like this:
1) Citizen files complaint with USPS (as OP did).
2) USPS looks into the matter.
3) USPS fines the offender for the cost of complaint processing + punitive fine.
4) USPS profits.
And yes, I really do believe it’d be that easy.
@WarOtter: It’s not a government agency. It’s a government owned corporation – there’s a difference. Gov corps have to be self-sufficient – just like private corps. Postage doesn’t kill the operation, leveraged negotiations with the postal worker’s union does.
@windycitygirl68: Yup. The bastards in my neighborhood thumbtack them to the post. I cased the post in aluminum, and now the buggers tape them on. Keeping my mailbox greased it a bit too much work to thwart them. So, I just pull them off and recycle. And I don’t buy anything from them.
I have constantly had problems with incorrectly delivered mail, but I didn’t know about this particular law. We received multiple flyers and advertisments each week, usually on Wednesday. I gues the biggest shock is the mail box I am talking about is a Post Office Box. The only people with access are Postal Employees. I guess they really don’t care about enforcing their own regulations, considering they are the ones breaking them.
I guess my next complaint letter will be to the Postmaster General and my Congressman and Senators. I doubt it will help but it might make a difference.
@MelL:
It’s an issue of context, not legality. An occasional, technically-illegal flyer in one’s mailbox is hardly worth pursuing when there are infinitely more important issues to be addressed in nearly every community in the country.
As I pointed out in my first post, jaywalking is illegal. Also, it’s rampant throughout the country, and it’s a crime.I probably see it every day, and I suspect you do as well, assuming you live in or near a major population center. Shall we mount a multi-million dollar campaign to stamp out jaywalking? Or is it more reasonable to let the fact that most jaywalking crimes are committed under circumstances that mitigate their egregiousness as an offense to the community govern our need to punish these offenders?
Sometimes it just silly to ask our officials to enforce the laws, particularly when it’s an issue as pedantic as this one.
If you have nothing better to do than to discover and demand enforcement of (exceptionally) petty crimes, particularly ones that most citizens wouldn’t even know were crimes (least of all the offenders, who are likely just doing what they can to make five bucks an hour), you really need to find a new hobby.
So THAT’S why people are always hanging things from my doorknob! Stupid law, I’d rather take my junkmail with my mail than be assaulted by it when I’m trying to get my key in the lock.
Here is my problem – I got a p.o. box for business; it is small, but just big enough for some few checks and correspondence . I can’t check it every two days, however, when you sign up for the p.o. the form states that you will not allow it to over fill (you agree to check it regularly). It fills up in a few days with store flyers—even if I get no personal mail. The p.o. lady says that they can do nothing because the company pays for the bulk mail. That is the problem, and no one addresses this. They are paying the government for the mailings, whether or not your name is attached to it. I told the postal woman that this was the equivalent to SPAM, which is illegal, and that the store flyers are spam, junk mail that I don’t want; and yet here the same government which would prosecute ME for spamming is accepting this physical spam because they’re getting paid for it. Reading this story gives me little hope that I could win a battle to stop it. When will someone (maybe a big shot lawyer) get sick enough of this to make a big lawsuit of it? I’m just a small man.
This law does not apply in every situation, I just dropped a christmas card to a friend’s mailbox i wanted to mail it with the rest of cards i mailed out last week for christmas but i dont know how to write her exact address i wasnt sure about the name of the little road to her house but i know how to get there so on my way to work this morning i just dropped it in her mailbox i dont think there is anything wrong with that, i didnt have any bad intentions, or intention avoiding to pay postage i can mail it no problem but i am afraid its going to be too late for christmas, i just want to make sure she’ll get it on time.