United States Postal Service has played an important role while America and the world were fighting the pandemic (Covid-19). 76% of the Americans voted by mail in the 2020 election. Around 80 million ballots have cast by mail in 2020.
United States Postal Service | Dead Mail
You might get an idea by the name “Dead” it means the mail which couldn’t be delivered by the post office. This term “Dead Mail” is also known as “Undeliverable mail” so that you can easily understand it.
Dead Mail happens due to so many reasons which can act as a challenge for USPS to find out the receiver or sender. USPS has its guidelines and steps to handle the dead mails which we will discuss later.
Many countries have implemented a policy of a special label for the dead mail. These special labels are only for the mails which have been through the DLO (Dead letter office).
All undelivered mails have to go through the Dead letter office. The invalid address can be the reason for undelivered or dead mails. The DLO is also known as Undeliverable mail, Returned letter office.
There are a few activities within the premises of the Dead Letter Office which ought to happen with dead mails:
1. The working professionals have the authority to open the envelope or parcel in order to find the address.
2. Dead Letter Office (DLO) seals the envelope using tape, postal seals for being delivered if an address is found.
3. At last if DLO is unable to get any address then valuable items would go for auction.
Dead Mail | Reasons
The U.S. postal service mail can be delayed or lost by different external or internal factors. Sometimes the mail can be delayed by USPS itself. We’ll help you to understand those factors which can cause a dead mail.
Let’s go
1. There might be incomplete, incorrect, and illegible addresses.
2. Unavailability of the person at the available address.
3. Delivery person can’t connect or contact the receiver.
4. It happens when the receiver denies taking the mail.
5. US postal service adjustments such as renaming streets and renumbering houses.
Change in address format can also be the reason (internal) by the USPS.
Changes in delivery districts and routes consolidation.
Undeliverable Mail/Dead Mail | How to Handle?
This happens sometimes while sending and receiving mails and parcels. Right? But what can a receiver or sender do at this point of time? We would like to help you with the following steps that one should take if your mail is undeliverable or dead.
1. If mail is undelivered then it will be returned to the sender and assigned as dead mail.
2. Your mail or parcel will be handover to the local post office or Mail Recovery Center would do the further process if the address would be incorrect.
3. The U.S postal service tends to send you mail within 7 days from the mail delivery date. You need to submit a Missing Mail application.
4. You can even call on this number via 1-800-ASK-USPS (1-800-275-8777). These representatives would be happy to submit a search request on your behalf.
5. The search request can be denied as well if it wouldn’t match the terms and conditions of the United States Postal Services.
Mail Recovery Center
If you are thinking that all the lost mails and parcels come here in Mail Recovery Center then you’re in the right direction. All the lost mails, envelopes, and parcels take place in the recovery center.
1. The mail recovery center keeps the barcoded mails for 60 days and 30 days for non-bar-coded mails. The recovery center attempts to open the mail to find the address so that they can return it.
2. All the mails will go for auction if the recovery center left with no clue while finding the address. Those mail (contains valuable items) are auctioned occasionally and the auction starts at 10:00 AM.
3. Food items, Metals, and a few other things that can’t be auctioned are trashed and recycled by the Mail Recovery System.
Conclusion:
Now, we’re pretty sure that you are now familiar with the USPS, Dead mail, or undelivered mail. The whole system of delivering mails and parcels is not a new deal for you anymore.
You can go through the official website for the new updates.
USPS website link: https://www.usps.com/
