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bolido_sentimental  1yr ago (text post)   4133 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 25, 2022

Merry Christmas, everyone!

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USPS offers free mail forwarding for when you move. The web form asks you "When should we start forwarding mail to your new address?"

The weird thing is, the site also says the following, emphasis mine:

Enter the date you'd like us to begin forwarding your mail to your new address. The date you enter must not be more than 30 days prior to today, or more than 3 months from today. Mail should arrive at your new address 7-10 postal business days after your move effective date OR your file date, whichever date is later.

What's the point of the portion in bold? It's not as if the USPS can go back in time to forward your mail, so entering any date prior to today is pointless, so not only do I not understand the bold portion, I also don't understand the nuance of what's special about the 30 day period. I recall seeing this language for several years in the past, so it's not some recent typo.

The only thing semi plausible I can think of is that maybe some letters take a very long time to go through the system, so perhaps a letter postdated Dec 21, 2022 that's stuck in a sorting facility somewhere could see it rerouted to the new address if the recipient submitted the request on Dec 28, 2022. But given the paragraph above says it takes 7-10 postal business days for this to kick in, I highly doubt they are sophisticated to execute my hypothesis.

I also thought it was weird that googling the exact phrase above yielded nothing on the web. How am I the only person on earth curious about this language?

If you moved out of your old home, and someone else moved in, if they're very conscientious they'll turn your mail into the post office. Maybe they'll forward that?

I work in shipping. You are largely correct about the transit-time mattering. The date the USPS cares about is the post-date; when it gets hit with the stamp at the first sort center of its journey. It gives you a chance to redirect some shipments still "in-flight" so to speak.

The USPS actually has the best website of all the major US carriers. If you fill out their forms they actually do the things they say they will 99% of the time. This is very, very, very much NOT the case with UPS/FEDEX websites. Their self service tools are largely worthless.

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