It's Illegal To Stick Unstamped Flyers In Mailboxes, But The Post Office Doesn't Care
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)
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Comments:
I find it funny they don't give a fuck, and want you to stop wasting their time and yours. Of course I'm paraphrasing.
Have you heard the term "unfunded mandate"? A law or regulation required by government, but with no funding to implement or enforce?
Postal rates just went up. If the post office were to spend resources to fund the enforcement of this law, rates would be far higher.
So yes, these business are breaking the law to market to you.
Solution?
Print the test of the law, laminate in weatherproof plastic and fasten to your mailbox.
Don't patronize business that solicit you in an illegal manner.
Recycle the paper they are wasting.
Acknowledge that many things in life are annoying. Accept this. Choose your battles.
Think about the time you spent and money you spent on postage to send these flyers to the post office. Think about how else you could have spent your time and money in a way that would have brought you more happiness.
And yet they came to my door and threatened to have me arrested because my daughter tied balloons to the mailbox handle to show people where her graduation party was!
And yes, the first of my 'solutions' is to print the text of the law, not test......
It's not hard to understand when you realize they're trying to get out of doing any work.
They never even emailed me to ACKNOWLEDGE the mail FRAUD complaint (as in actual MONETARY LOSSES) I sent them a few months ago, and I have never heard of the fraudsters being prosecuted.
And to the people saying "just get over it" -- that's fine if that's what you want to do, but stop telling other people how they should spend their time.
I've always known about this law, and even made a joke about it a few months ago when a person down the road was having a cookout and was inviting all the neighbors... telling my wife how I don't want to associate with those who break the law by sticking things in my mailbox.
But at the same time, I never understood this law.
It is MY MAIL BOX - I PAID FOR IT - I PUT IT UP. It should be up to me if I want others to also use the mailbox.
Now if the post office came around putting up their own mailboxes for my use - then yes, I could understand that law.
@SkokieGuy:
"Postal rates just went up. If the post office were to spend resources to fund the enforcement of this law, rates would be far higher."
Easy solution...get the money to enforce by enforcing it. I'm sure in the fine print there is something saying punishable by prison time and thousands of dollars. This is the US mail we are talking about here...it's been my experience they do not mess around when it comes to regulations.
I wonder the legality of just dropping those menus and the like into a mail drop-box. if they have a return address on them, wouldn't the PO get bitter about it then?
@Buran: So we can't tell people what to do (get over it), but you can (stop telling others)? The logic in this is?
You apparently suffered monetary losses, a bigger issue. The OP did not and was merely annoyed. She wants the Post Office to enforce a postal regulation to eliminate her annoyance.
Since the Post Office is part of our government and what they spend employee labor on has a direct impact on postal rates, the implementation of the OP's wishes could easily impact me and every other person who uses the US mail system.
Our opinions on this post are just as valid as yours.
@Buran: Who was saying get over it? I read all the comments and missed that one.
Seriously- I hate giving genuine advice on trivial problems but hey, it's a slow day, and the wonkette is boring me at the moment. So here's a genuine solution. Try putting a smaller box, under the "mail" box and clearly lable it for "flyers and advertisers". Lable the top one, "Post Office Use Only." Then at least that should keep the advertisers out of your mailbox (which I assume is what is really bothering you about this). I too get paranoid that the person handing out the flyers will notice say a x-mas card and gank it hoping to find cash.
On the topic of junk mail, whenever I go to get my mail at my complex, the other trashy residents always throw the junk mail on the ground, as if protesting its existence (and there's a freaking giant trashcan right next to the mail boxes). What these trashy residents don't realize is that their apartment number is on the address panel. Sometimes I like to gather up the junk from the ground, check the apartment numbers, and go pin it to their door with a note "You dropped this."
So instead of your mailbox, would you rather the flyers are stuck in your front door handle? Or placed on the ground near your entryway?
Oh yeah, I'm going to stick it to the man with badly printed flyers to sell my crap!
So does this mean that you can leave a turd in someone's mailbox and they can't do anything about it as long as you put a stamp on it?
@Phenostar: Here's one better than that. Call the authorities about littering. Some of those flyers get blown to the ground and are not the result of your neighbors littering. The business that leaves them will have to send someone out to clean them, or pay a fine to the city. At least that's how it is in my city.
Really? Really really?
Know what else is illegal? Littering. But every time I call 911 when I see someone spit gum on the sidewalk, the police refuse to arrest him! Now there's a story.
SkokieGuy is right, and a hell of a lot more thorough than I am. Choose your battles, and let law enforcement deal with real problems.
@SkokieGuy: @LorneReams: Indeed, section 1725 provides for a fine, which, one would hope, would at least cover the cost of enforcement. I would also dispute categorizing a federal criminal law as an unfunded mandate, especially because it is the federal government that has to enforce it.
Perhaps she should invest in a lockable mailbox, this would at least keep the flyers OUT of her mailbox.
@coan_net: actually you may purchase your mail box but it is actually gov. property, it has to be for the mail fraud/mail tampering provisions written into federal law to be enforced.
@SkokieGuy: I agree. There is a reason its not enforced, because it would cost more to enforce then it costs us for it to happen. I come home and throw away a handful of crap everyday, and realize that's just life.
They probably made those laws for people like Al Capone, when they cant find anything else on you :)
Each week, I get several mailings of grocery fliers and other local ads from companies such as PennySaver and ADVO. I have sent the "take me off your list" letter with the result that I no longer get the address card that comes with the fliers but the carrier puts the fliers in my mailbox just the same. My brother had the same problem and when he complained to the local postmaster, he was told that they had to put the fliers in everyone's box whether or not there was a valid address card attached. I suppose they figure it's not worth their time to have the carrier leave the fliers out of my box.
When I was a wee lad delivering papers, at first I was able to put the papers in mailboxes. After couple of years, I was told that it was absolutely prohibited due to post office rules. It never did, and still doesn't, make sense to me. If I buy the box and I put it on my house, I should be able to do whatever the hell I want with it.
If anyone is possibly surprised by the fact that the USPS is one of the worst operated government agencies in the country, then I have a bridge to sell you.
Seriously, I deal with the post office's fine work ethic on a daily basis. I process return mail for my company (about 12,000 letters a day), and the condition we receive mail in can only be described as horrifying. I have gotten letters back that had begun to form colonies of mold on them, covered in mysterious chemicals and fluids, crumpled up, run over, wet, burned, and otherwise mutilated. This is not to mention the 200-300 pieces of mail we get that not only doesn't belong to us, but has been misdirected from all over the country. Just today, I received someone's stimulus check destined for someone in Indiana.
Despite our complaints to the post office, nothing ever changes. And thanks to the government sponsored monopoly, there is nothing we can do about it.
@snoop-blog: If you're worried about mail theft, the solution to your problems might be a locking mailbox.
Lockable mailboxes don't solve the flyer problem, but I agree with the voices of reason on this post that the best thing to do would be to call the businesses up directly and let them know that you won't do business with them if they keep cluttering your mailbox. Or put a sign on the mailbox saying "NOTICE: I will not do business with companies that leave flyers" or somesuch.
Believe me when I say the post office is not going to enforce this. They barely enforce the laws against mail fraud and other more damaging activities. Figure out a way to deal with it that isn't just relying on the gov't (haha, the worse way to deal with anything, really, is to rely on the gov't to fix it for you).
@Alex Chasick: Yes, there is a fine, but it is limited to not more than $300.00.
To investigate a claim, issue a citation and fine and most important, collect on that fine is hard to justify for that amount of money.
In my area, most solicitors are pretty diligent about avoiding the mailbox. So I get the same flyers, rubber banded to my door handle, between the slats of my storm door, wedged into the slats of a chair on my porch, tucked into plants. Frankly, I'd rather have them in the mailbox.
Enforcement won't "stop these coming" which is the OP's wish. It will only change the location of where they are left.
Go on with your life. I've been known to drop off a letter or two at people's mailboxes without postage just to avoid having to pay postage...Wedding invitations, graduation parties....Seriously man, do you want people like myself to be fined for breaking this law too? Some businesses need a little cheap advertising to stay in business. Or would you rather them spend thousands in television and radio ads only to raise their prices?
@Asvetic: Unfortunately, the regulations require that home mailboxes have a slot receptacle for mail. That doesn't keep anything out but the thieves.
Is it illegal if you leave it on top of the mailbox?
How about the fact that I don't want people I don't know going into my Mailbox?
@SkokieGuy: The logic is that sometimes you have to react to silliness to do something about it... but you are right in that I did suffer losses, and that such things are a more severe issue... but since they won't react to actual losses either it sure seems to me like they want to just generally avoid doing any work.
This is by far the smallest unenforced government law we should be worried about.
Getting flyers illegally stuffed into your mail box is far better than having those dodgy looking 20 somethings selling miracle cleaner, magazine subscriptions or grocery raffles. I was getting one a day that seemed to all be from the same pool of people for a while. That was until one caught me on a really bad afternoon and I stopped short of threatening bodily harm.
No the post office doesn't care. I tried turning someone in for using media mail to mail non media ebay items. Three trips to the main post office to be told they were too busy to bother by the postal inspector.
I've always felt that, given the inevitable results of mass-distributing unwanted pieces of paper, these people and several others should be fined for the misdemeanor I just invented:
"Accesory to Littering"
"Don't patronize business that solicit you in an illegal manner."
Another BLAME the consumerist! My god, if we do not put our merchants in check they will get away with shooting people on their property because they didn't show ID with their credit card and now are "in the right" because they were tresspassing. But hey, choose your battles, just bend over and let Businesses do whatever they want, even if they are LEGALLY obligated to NOT do such practices.
what the post office needs is a good enforcer. go down to your local sporting goods store, buy a shiny new bat & do "what you can do for your government".
after all, it was teddy that said to "speak softly & carry a big stick".
@kimsama:
"but I agree with the voices of reason on this post that the best thing to do would be to call the businesses up directly and let them know that you won't do business with them if they keep cluttering your mailbox."
That will never work. Did you know how flyer marketing works? You send a kid getting paid 8.00 Bucks an hour to a neighborhood and drop a flyer at every house. Sometimes they will pay by the neighborhood rather than per hour. Either way there is no way for the kid keep track of which houses to skip.
That said you can call and tell them to make sure they properly train the people doing flyer drops. They should be told to drop the flyers off but never touch the mailbox becuase it is against the law, and can upset people.
@SkokieGuy:
"In my area, most solicitors are pretty diligent about avoiding the mailbox. So I get the same flyers, rubber banded to my door handle, between the slats of my storm door, wedged into the slats of a chair on my porch, tucked into plants. Frankly, I'd rather have them in the mailbox."
That is how people doing flyer drops usually are trained. And it would be easier to just use the mailbox but it seems, at least on the site, you are in the minority with your preference.
@Gokuhouse: What you're advocating here is a complete and total breakdown of the foundations upon which out society is based! We live in a nation of laws! What if I just came along and stole your house, and the police were all, like, "Well, we don't really enforce that law against house stealing". What would you do then? Hmm? Hmm? Anarchy! First it's little things, like mailboxes, then it's onto bigger and more expensive items... Such as cars, boats, houses, and stadiums! My friends... I don't know about you, that's not the sort of world that I want to live in! All I can say is don't come crying to me when some ruffian makes off with your swimming pool...
So much to-do about nothing. Toss the fliers in the garbage, or better yet recycle them. I live in a small town, and my mail is delivered by a rural carrier to a bank of mailboxes about 200 feet from my house. As a result fliers tend to get dropped on my front steps, where I'm forced to pick them up. There are laws against littering too. I guess I should notify my local law enforcement agencies so they can arrest these "litterers." With all the real problems in the world, why is this the one you vetch about. Get a life.
@WarOtter: Sure you can. You can have the government take over more aspects of your life, like health care, so that relatively, when compared with everything else, the postal service is awesome!
Here's the problem:
Have you ever actually SEEN the guy from the Chinese takeout joint put a menu in your mailbox? NO! He is THAT fast, no one knows who he is, not even the restaurant that employs him - they just leave a stack of menus and his payment in a neutral location and he does his work. I sometimes sat in my dormroom waiting for the menu to slip under my door and I would bolt out the door and there would be no sign of the guy.
Now I'm not saying the post office is NOT too lazy too enforce this weird code that probably had a lot of good reasoning in 1879. But even if they do care to enforce it...you can't punish the guy if you can't even catch him.
The fliers I get are always on my doorknob or stuck to my door. What I really wish we could stop is phone books. Who uses those antiquated things?
@bjarmson:
Because that is exactly the point, illegal advertising is annoying and it doesn't really help the business in the first place. So here's an idea, how about the business just stops dropping flyers altogether and saves a couple of bucks? Paint your advertising on someones vehicle, the person drives around town, the word gets out. No need to waste paper and annoy people. Why should I have to waste my time and energy to recycle your illegally delivered flyer that could have been used for something else in the first place that wasn't illegal or annoying me.
If this is really an issue for you, why not contact the USPS Customer Service? If this were any other corporation that would be the next step.
[faq.usps.com])=c[c_usps6513]
Customer Service representatives are also available to take your calls at 1-800-ASK-USPS (1-800-275-8777):
* Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time (7:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. CST)
* Saturdays from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time (7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CST)
* Sunday and Postal Holidays - closed (Unless otherwise directed) 2008 Postal Holidays
Amen, I don't even have a landline yet somehow a Embarq phone book landed on my porch!
Then why even have the law to begin with?
Where I live, it is a 4th degree misdemeanor to not clear one's sidewalks of snow and/or ice. To my knowledge no one has ever been charged with this offense, even though it has been on the books for 28 years.
Vigorous enforcement of all laws is the only way bad laws get off the books. Otherwise they sit and fester to the point when they are only used to harass otherwise law-abiding citizens.
As an aside, it pays to notice that the penalty for failing to remove snow and/or ice from one's sidewalk is greater than the penalty for possessing less than 100g of marijuana in my jurisdiction.
What pisses me off even more is I have a NO SOLICITING sign on my front door, yet at least once a week some kid is ringing my door bell(usually more then once too) they see the car in my driveway and hear my TV in the living room right by the door, they know I'm here, yet for some reason when I don't open the door they still dont get the hint.. next thing I know I hear some scratching on my door and I'm like WTF? and a little blue flier slips through my door. Did they not get the friggen hint when I didn't come to the door?
I would continue to mail it to them.