I wonder he he also receives that mail or was going to but someone caught it?
My post office for a good year was horrendous about delivering me my neighbor's mail. I felt like a Jr. Mail Carrier in training ;)
Last few years they've been SPOT on.
I tried informed delivery but honestly it's more of a hassle for me as my wife says "this should have arrived today" and of course it doesn't so she thinks it's stolen and ... it arrives 3 days later.
This is no big deal. From the photograph in the blog, it's clearly a problem with the mail handling machine. No big whoop.
As a reminder, there is no legal expectation of privacy for the outside of your mail. Envelopes are no different than post cards. Anyone can legally read them.
Years ago, I'd signed up for the Informed Delivery service, which is where these images originate.
When I moved, I forgot to cancel the service and so received pictures of the next person's mail. It was simple to cancel.
I get this semi-frequently too; but, the biggest problems for me w/this system are:
1. I get the pictures DAYS before the actual mail (weekends ignored). Why?!
2. I sometimes don't get pictures of the mail at all, particularly mail that's not bulk mail--it's from individual to individual.
I could give a flying fuck that I'm going to be getting 5 advertisements in a few days. I want to know when I'm getting ACTUAL mail and this system doesn't seem to capture that effectively.
I have an extremely common first and last name and my email address is first.last@gmail.
I get my fair share of misaddressed mail but it doesn’t help that I share the same name as the CEO of a major hotel chain’s timeshare business so I’ve getting tons of complaints about that :/
I've owned the domain name richardson.co.nz for some 25 years now and since then someone started a Richardson's realestate and registered richardsons.co.nz (note the additional "s").
I left the catch-all on my domains email going for a year or two before I had to disable it. The sheer amount of house blueprints, sensitive information about transfers etc was overwhelming.
I have one like that. I have the email first.last@gmail.com, and I have a very uncommon last name. Lo and behold, Google let some dude in Australia who happens to share my name sign up with firstlast@gmail.com. According to the docs the two should be equivalent, so they shouldn't have let him sign up, but they did... and now I get his email all the time. I have gotten job offers, bills from medical offices, even one follow up email from his therapist. And lots and lots of ads, of course. I have tried to let people know (when it's a real person contacting me) to let this guy know about the email situation, but either they don't reach out to him or he doesn't care. At this point I just delete all the emails meant for him without reading them, and figure if he misses out on a job offer or something... I tried my best.
Still, bizarre that the situation was allowed to occur in the first place by Google. Clearly they need to beef up their account creation checks a bit.
I get quite a few misaddressed e-mails to my gmail address as well. Everything from residential solar install invoices through a facebook account that someone continues to try to recover every couple months for years now I cannot delink (and thus cannot sign up for a Facebook account if I even wanted to with my primary e-mail address short of taking over that existing account in the wrong full name).
The best one so far is I've been on a group e-mail chain from some folks in France (I'm in the US) who organize a skiing trip each year to the Alps. I initially sent a couple "I am not the Phil you are looking for!" e-mails, but they continue to re-add me. I have thought about one day just showing up since I've been "invited" and have all the details for booking and just seeing what hilarity ensues.
My first name is "Save" in Spanish and Portuguese, and apparently people think they are saving documents when they send them to that gmail address. I have received medical records, employment documents, so many photos, insurance information, you name it.
I have a reasonably common name. I am in Bay Area, and have received mail meant for people in Fresno or Bakersfield, someone in Toronto, someone in Australia, and I think someone in a London suburb. There are drug test results, online orders, legal discussions, store receipts and hotel bookings. I even connected with 2-3 folks with my name - don't recall how I figured their other email. It was quite common for a while, but then I haven't seen anything like this for 2-3 years. When I say common, I mean once every 6-8 months and I guess I have had that email for 15 years or so. Maybe my universe of overlap was finite and all those people have figured out how to type their email now :)
That email is my first name dot last name but at one point I had been able to secure both first name at email provider dot come and last name at email provider dot com which somehow I abandoned. I wonder what level of erroneous emails I would have received at them.
Mine is {{random-initial}}{{random-initial}}{{uncommon-French-Canadian-surname}}@gmail.com, and I still get lots of wrong peoples' email messages. I've emailed more than one company to let them know they just violated HIPAA, and that they should really send a verification email first.
Also, when Venmo was new, and they were playing extra fast and loose, they set me up with someone else's bank account, so I just closed the Venmo account and used PayPal instead, which was a different company at the time.
I have {{popular job title in tech}}@gmail.com , and let me tell you.... yikes. Actually it's not that bad, I just tweak my enormous blacklist keyword filter once a month or so. For some reason, 99% of the junk is from India, which makes filtering easier. But brother you should see my "misdelivered crap" folder.
I share a name with a retired professional sportsperson. Alas for them, I hold the naturally occurring gmail account, having registered it two decades ago. Whilst they were active this account received regular sponsorship offers from unsuspecting apparel manufacturers, equipment makers etc etc, and it was always my pleasure to string these along as long as possible until someone twigged
This seems incredibly rampant on gmail.
On the one hand I signed up early enough to have <common non-english surname><first initial>@gmail.com
Unfortunately people in countries of my parents native language seem to think my email address is theirs, and I get EVERYTHING. Vacation photos, medical records, car service reminders, the whole lot.
What's interesting is that none of the spam filters seem to have a "I'm a dumb American, I cannot read this language, therefore anything in this language should be spam" rule.
Same here, and Informed Delivery is actually a great feature for that (i.e. tracking whether one of my letters probably went to somebody else's mailbox again and whether it's worth asking the neighbors or looking on top of their mailboxes).
This happens to me sometimes. I bought a house and occasionally get pictures of the previous owners mail. I assume it's because these scans take place before the new address forwarding because I don't receive their mail.
Wow TIL about the USPS Informed Delivery service that sends pictures of your mail for free. Apparently OP might occasionally see my mail but who cares, this is great https://www.usps.com/manage/informed-delivery.htm
What's the point of a service that emails you pictures of your snail mail? You'll know about it anyway when it's delivered, and unlike a parcel, no action is required to receive it. Not snark, I'm legitimately asking - I'm probably missing something.
I legitimately can't remember the last time I received actual mail in my mailbox. Everything goes to e-boks.dk.
That said, it's not really terribly unusual to actually just receive someone else's mail. I've gotten mail that was meant to go to my neighbors a number of times. So I reckon that an issue like this probably isn't a big deal in the long run; if it was that big of a concern, then actually accidentally delivering to the slightly-wrong-address would be worse.
This happened to me before and I reported it through their website and they actually fixed it for me at least, I guess the problem still exists though.
I use Informed Delivery for my PO box since I don't get much mail there. The worst thing about it is that the USPS uses the system to announce when there are new episodes of Mailin’ It! - The Official USPS Podcast.
They send the daily digest saying "You have 1 mailpiece arriving soon." Instead of the usual picture of the 'mailpiece', it's an image illustrating the episode. There is no physical mail corresponding to this alert, it's electronic junk mail. Spam. Ugh. There is no opt out for these apart from canceling the service entirely.
I get this all the time, I assume because I live in an apartment an they're previous residents. The interesting thing is they don't actually get delivered, so it's being caught somewhere in the system.
That said I do also get misdelivered mail, which I don't get Informed Delivery for. I've gotten tax documents, jury summons, settlement checks, you name it. People really need to file a change of address.
This happens to me almost daily. I get photos of mail sent to the couple I bought my house from 4.5 years ago. Their mail never actually arrives in my mailbox, but it's still quite a privacy breech for the former owners (who were clearly operating a business out of their home, in violation of the HOA rules (not that I care an iota)).
Every now and then I return-to-sender something that looks important to my address's previous resident and sharpie out the barcode along the bottom. If you don't do this your RTS items will come back to you regardless of what you stamp it with. Even still I receive an informed delivery photo of it.
My belief is that the informed delivery system is using optical recognition while the sorters are using the barcodes.
Is the incorrectly shared mail piece addressed to someone with a quite similar address, or potentially someone who previously lived there?
Just having thought once in a while about how complicated addresses are, I can only imagine all the things that can go wrong. (both for the post office, and for example, credit cards/banks that have to use addresses in validation of purchases, etc)
Imagine an apartment building with many units. Think of how people differently specify on the address lines which unit they live in? What if they leave off their unit #? What about apartments that are numbered "345 1/2 Second Street"?
What about a new person with the same last name that appears at an address? What do you do about that? Is an address that differs by a very subtle letter a different household? E.g. "345b Second Street"? Should you ship a package there or approve a credit card, or is that likely to be an attempt to fraudulently divert mail to someone else who is nonexistent?
I'm sure it's endlessly complicated, and I have no idea. But I know it will be complicated.
USPS started sending me pictures of the place where I used to live 5 years ago all the sudden, they are not addressed to me and there is no way I can stop these mails (I could block them on gmail but that will affect my own digest).
I have an even better version. I rent a small PO box and I keep getting the condo management company's mail meant for the next PO box over. Interestingly enough while informed delivery worked in the pilot program, they kicked it out when it was launched because my box is commercial. So I don't know when mail is inbound and just have to check when I think there's something.
I sometimes only check the box once a month, and it's not uncommon it's full of bill pay checks for people's rent lol.
48 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 70.8 ms ] threadMy post office for a good year was horrendous about delivering me my neighbor's mail. I felt like a Jr. Mail Carrier in training ;)
Last few years they've been SPOT on.
I tried informed delivery but honestly it's more of a hassle for me as my wife says "this should have arrived today" and of course it doesn't so she thinks it's stolen and ... it arrives 3 days later.
As a reminder, there is no legal expectation of privacy for the outside of your mail. Envelopes are no different than post cards. Anyone can legally read them.
Years ago, I'd signed up for the Informed Delivery service, which is where these images originate.
When I moved, I forgot to cancel the service and so received pictures of the next person's mail. It was simple to cancel.
Anyone with access to them. You can absolutely not read my postcards, for example, because you don't have a key for my mailbox.
> As a reminder, there is no legal expectation of privacy for the outside of your mail.
Just because it's legal doesn't make it a great thing to happen.
1. I get the pictures DAYS before the actual mail (weekends ignored). Why?!
2. I sometimes don't get pictures of the mail at all, particularly mail that's not bulk mail--it's from individual to individual.
I could give a flying fuck that I'm going to be getting 5 advertisements in a few days. I want to know when I'm getting ACTUAL mail and this system doesn't seem to capture that effectively.
I've had many many bank statements from India.
I've had someone in California order a brand new BMW and got the details for collection.
I've had paypal invoices and statements (this is one funny because they refuse to action the delink).
I used to reach out and tell them I didn't sign up for their service. But honestly, after doing it for a few years I gave up.
Now, I mark as junk and move on.
The best one I had was a dating site in Canada, I got it while sat next to me partner.
I get my fair share of misaddressed mail but it doesn’t help that I share the same name as the CEO of a major hotel chain’s timeshare business so I’ve getting tons of complaints about that :/
I left the catch-all on my domains email going for a year or two before I had to disable it. The sheer amount of house blueprints, sensitive information about transfers etc was overwhelming.
Still, bizarre that the situation was allowed to occur in the first place by Google. Clearly they need to beef up their account creation checks a bit.
The best one so far is I've been on a group e-mail chain from some folks in France (I'm in the US) who organize a skiing trip each year to the Alps. I initially sent a couple "I am not the Phil you are looking for!" e-mails, but they continue to re-add me. I have thought about one day just showing up since I've been "invited" and have all the details for booking and just seeing what hilarity ensues.
That email is my first name dot last name but at one point I had been able to secure both first name at email provider dot come and last name at email provider dot com which somehow I abandoned. I wonder what level of erroneous emails I would have received at them.
Also, when Venmo was new, and they were playing extra fast and loose, they set me up with someone else's bank account, so I just closed the Venmo account and used PayPal instead, which was a different company at the time.
Unfortunately people in countries of my parents native language seem to think my email address is theirs, and I get EVERYTHING. Vacation photos, medical records, car service reminders, the whole lot.
What's interesting is that none of the spam filters seem to have a "I'm a dumb American, I cannot read this language, therefore anything in this language should be spam" rule.
It's similar to if you hold a flashlight to the back of an envelope and can then see 'through' it to read the paper inside.
Please stop getting people riled up about fake problems. You are pissing in the pool.
I legitimately can't remember the last time I received actual mail in my mailbox. Everything goes to e-boks.dk.
That said, it's not really terribly unusual to actually just receive someone else's mail. I've gotten mail that was meant to go to my neighbors a number of times. So I reckon that an issue like this probably isn't a big deal in the long run; if it was that big of a concern, then actually accidentally delivering to the slightly-wrong-address would be worse.
They send the daily digest saying "You have 1 mailpiece arriving soon." Instead of the usual picture of the 'mailpiece', it's an image illustrating the episode. There is no physical mail corresponding to this alert, it's electronic junk mail. Spam. Ugh. There is no opt out for these apart from canceling the service entirely.
That said I do also get misdelivered mail, which I don't get Informed Delivery for. I've gotten tax documents, jury summons, settlement checks, you name it. People really need to file a change of address.
More than Occasionally
My belief is that the informed delivery system is using optical recognition while the sorters are using the barcodes.
Just having thought once in a while about how complicated addresses are, I can only imagine all the things that can go wrong. (both for the post office, and for example, credit cards/banks that have to use addresses in validation of purchases, etc)
Imagine an apartment building with many units. Think of how people differently specify on the address lines which unit they live in? What if they leave off their unit #? What about apartments that are numbered "345 1/2 Second Street"?
What about a new person with the same last name that appears at an address? What do you do about that? Is an address that differs by a very subtle letter a different household? E.g. "345b Second Street"? Should you ship a package there or approve a credit card, or is that likely to be an attempt to fraudulently divert mail to someone else who is nonexistent?
I'm sure it's endlessly complicated, and I have no idea. But I know it will be complicated.
For example, my address is 150 Main Street and it would send me photos of mail addressed to 158 Main Street.
I don't consider this a vulnerability, per se. This is the the usual level of uncertainty when dealing with physical objects.
I sometimes only check the box once a month, and it's not uncommon it's full of bill pay checks for people's rent lol.