
Digitally preview incoming USPS mail and packages - omilu
https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action
======
crazygringo
I tried signing up for this 3 months ago, and was shocked to receive images
for the mail of literally _everyone_ in my building (I'm one of seven
apartments).

 _Huuuge_ privacy violation. (It's just images of the envelopes, but that
still tells you a lot.)

I unsubscribed and then went to file feedback, and got an immediate reply
explaining this was _by design_ :

> _Thank you for participating in Informed Delivery®. You recently reported
> that you are receiving images for other units in your apartment complex.
> This is due to the fact that your unit /complex is not coded down to a
> unique delivery point barcode, which is a requirement for this service._

> _In order for the feature to provide mail images to the appropriate
> recipient(s), each multi-unit building on each carrier route must be
> individually identified and coded to the unit level. While most addresses
> are coded at this level, this coding process, especially in high density
> areas, is a work in progress. If you live in multi-unit building and you
> have successfully registered on usps.com ®, but the sign up process
> indicates that you do not have an eligible address, we are unable to offer
> you the feature until the coding is complete. Please check back at a later
> date._

It seems insane that if my building isn't "coded" I see _everyone 's_ mail
instead of nobody's.

And it's not like I'm in the middle of nowhere -- I'm in Brooklyn, half a
block away from an express train stop. And the post office knows about our
different addresses -- I mean, they deliver mail directly into our individual
locked mailboxes.

~~~
ams6110
I frequently get actual mail addressed to my neighbors, so IMO that's a worse
problem than seeing the images of the envelopes or packages.

I also don't know what problem this really solves. Grasping at straws for the
USPS to remain relevant I think. Big waste of money in my opinion.

~~~
PascLeRasc
It solves the problem of wasted energy delivering mail people don't want, like
junk mail/spam. I'd be very interested to see how much wasted paper and gas
goes into producing and delivering junk mail. Mail processing centers already
use computer vision to see where a parcel's going instead of manually sorting,
so this is a logical step forward.

~~~
ada1981
How does this stop junk mail ?

I have this and get an email every day showing me a bunch of mail I don’t want
or need.

~~~
PascLeRasc
My mistake. I thought the point was to let you choose to discard mail before
receiving it.

~~~
ada1981
That would be awesome, but it’s just a dark foreshadowing of the junk to come.

------
verst
This issue is a privacy / security nightmare.

I had my mail forwarded to my colleague while I was traveling for business for
2 months. Signed up for informed delivery with his address but my name (that's
how I was forwarding mail).

Not only did I not have to verify that I live at that address and hence
started receiving emails with images of my incoming mail, but I also received
images for his and his wife's mail.

Trying to set up informed delivery for my address required some sort of in
person address verification which I didn't feel like completing, but the
emails with scans of incoming mail still are sent to me daily (which is all I
needed anyway). Very concerning how anyone could easily observe my mail this
way.

By the way, it seems that address verification is only required to access some
sort of dashboard, but this doesn't prevent the emails with images of incoming
mail to be sent.

~~~
udkl
I had to make the decision just a few days ago and as enticing it seemed that
previewing at my mail before it was in my hand wouldn't add any value for me.
The other factor was that I did not trust USPS (or any 'non-technical-at-core'
company for that matter) with the security and privacy of my data. Looks like
it was the right choice not to opt in.

------
seltzered_
Worth remembering five years ago there was a startup (Outbox) trying to work
with the USPS on this with some disruptive features (spam mail removal). USPS
killed it: [https://www.insidesources.com/outbox-vs-usps-how-the-post-
of...](https://www.insidesources.com/outbox-vs-usps-how-the-post-office-
killed-digital-mail/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7667068](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7667068)

Outbox's shutdown note:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20140712084627/http://blog.outbox...](http://web.archive.org/web/20140712084627/http://blog.outboxmail.com/post/74086768959/outbox-
is-shutting-down-a-note-of-gratitude)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7097892](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7097892)

~~~
0xffff2
I think spam mail removal is an entirely different beast since USPS makes a
lot (maybe even most) of their money off of mail that most people consider
spam. It's in USPS's financial interest to deliver as much junk mail to you as
possible.

~~~
Wingman4l7
As much as I rely on USPS for a lot of things and love them for it, I'm still
sore at them for very obviously sharing my postal address with a bunch of spam
mailers. I foolishly filed an official change-of-address with them when I
moved cities a few years ago -- and immediately started getting junk mail from
all manner of companies, addressed to me personally, at my new residence.

------
sl1ck731
This has been great for deciding if I want to walk out to the mailbox in the
winter or not. But I believe signing up for this caused me to get a ton of
junk mail.

There is something about either forwarding/address changing or this informed
delivery that allows USPS to sell your new address to junk mailers. I signed
up for both at the same time and was flooded with new junk mail the day I
moved in. It gives me a serious distaste for the postal service as an
organization.

~~~
logfromblammo
The workaround is to do a _temporary_ change of address, and contact each
company that sends you mail forwarded from your old address individually, to
update your address record. When the mail stops forwarding, you stop getting
mail from anyone that you didn't explicitly inform of your new address.

The permanent change of address triggers advertising that targets new
residents. Restaurants want to try to snag your regular business before you
find other options on your own. Hardware stores expect that you might be doing
some post-move remodeling. Insurers might try to sell you on a new homeowner
or renter policy. Cable and phone companies offer you limited-time deals for
new customers.

It's a one-time deluge that tails off pretty quickly. The USPS makes a _lot_
of their revenue from periodicals (2nd class) and marketing (3rd class) mail.

~~~
Rebelgecko
It's also one of the best ways to get the vaunted Bed Bath and Beyond 20% off
_your entire purchase_ coupon. Depending on how much stuff you're buying after
you move, that can be worth a little junk mail

~~~
Stratoscope
Agreed, that's how I have gotten that coupon too.

It's time to share the Three Secrets of the regular 20% off one item and $5
off a $15 purchase coupons that BeBo (that's what we call them here) mails
out:

0\. Ignore what it says on the coupon!

1\. The coupons do not expire. No one looks at the expiration date, they just
scan the barcode and it always works.

2\. You can use any number of coupons in a single purchase as long as they are
on different items.

3\. If you don't have a coupon with you, you have 30 days to come back with a
coupon and your receipt and get the discount refunded.

------
kawfey
[https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/11/u-s-secret-service-
warns...](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/11/u-s-secret-service-warns-id-
thieves-are-abusing-uspss-mail-scanning-service/)

~~~
rickyc091
They've "fixed" the loophole by sending you a physical letter with a pin
number that you have to input onto their website to activate the service.
However, someone that's targetting you could still steal your mail with the
pin.

~~~
omilu
Negative, I just activated it and all I had to do was answer some questions
related to my credit.

~~~
mynameisvlad
Is the address you activated it for on your credit report? They likely
verified your identity through those questions, and would also have your
current and past addresses as part of that.

------
PaulStatezny
If you sell your house, USPS has no way to know and they keep sending you the
emails for your old residence.

So now there's no way when you move into a new residence of knowing whether
someone else is snooping on your email.

~~~
a-wu
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. When I filed my change of address/mail
forwarding, they sent me an email saying that Informed Delivery was suspended
on my old address and then they also sent a letter to the old address which
was forwarded to the new address which basically said the same thing.

I guess if you don’t file change of address then they won’t know.

~~~
lacey
I did file a change address a year ago and yet continued to receive the emails
from my previous address. As mentioned in my reply to another comment, I tried
unsuccessfully to convince them that this was a problem, and they told me it
was my responsibility to also discontinue the emails.

Perhaps they have changed their position in the last year.

~~~
a-wu
It sounds like they changed it then since I moved only 6 months ago.

~~~
george_perez
I moved two years ago and even then it unsubscribed me from my previous
Informed Delivery subscription. I really don't know what the user above is
talking about.

------
reaperducer
I had this back when I lived in Chicago a number of years ago.

Unfortunately, I still have it even though I've moved away so now I get to
preview someone else's mail.

The last few times I tried to unsubscribe, the USPS web site was not working
properly, so I just roundfile the incoming messages.

------
theaccordance
You mean to tell me I can get a daily spam message showing me previews of all
the spam coming to my physical inbox?

~~~
jtokoph
The funny part is that they don’t scan the kind of spam that is blanketed to
your area like grocery store inserts and local gym offers (the stuff that
isn’t actually addressed to you). They do still scan the targeted spam like
credit card offers and such. They don’t scan magazines either. Just
individually addressed envelopes and postcards.

~~~
theaccordance
Except every exception you've outlined has been delivered to me in my daily
previews since signing up 6 months ago

~~~
gowld
They scan the stuff sent to "YOU OR CURRENT RESIDENT". I think they don't scan
the stuff that is dropped off in a giant stack with orders to deliver to every
box in a zip code.

------
omilu
This feature is great. See a grayscale scale image of the envelopes and
packages being delivered to your house everyday.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
What decision or choices do you make based on that new data stream? What is
the advantage, because I really don’t get the idea.

Edit: I see below; that theft awareness and not having to go check the mailbox
are the features... ok, I guess. I have trouble believing that this applies to
so many people they need to support a public facing service for it.

~~~
stetrain
It matters more when you don't have a personal mailbox at your residence and
instead have to go to a shared mailbox center for your street / apartment
complex.

Also many people have P.O. boxes at a separate mail center location where
going to check your mail means actually getting in a car and driving across
town.

~~~
abruzzi
Where I live there is no home delivery of mail, so all my mail goes to a PO
box, so this is a huge boon to me. The only problem is international mail
doesn't show up in the system, so when I'm getting a package from Japan, New
Zealand, or elsewhere, I get no notification, and have to revert to the
tracking number.

------
synaesthesisx
The glaring issue with informed delivery is it's fairly easy for someone to
sign up on someone else's address. There are even reports of people supposedly
using it on the home office addresses of lawyers involved in M&A.

[https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/10/usps-informed-
delivery-i...](https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/10/usps-informed-delivery-is-
stalkers-dream/)

USPS really dropped the ball on this one.

~~~
rtkwe
They've changed the auth method. When I signed up they mailed me one of the
secure letter (rip open seams with random pattern on the inside) things used
for CC pins and sensitive info with a validation number I had to enter.

------
Animats
If only you could run a spam filter on the images and have the junk mail
rerouted direct to recycling.

 _USPS RecycleDirect™_

------
bootlooped
I would love if this would let me flag something and automatically return to
sender. I've lived in a rental for a year now and I still get more mail for
other people than I do for myself.

------
whalesalad
Been using this for a few months, it's pretty cool. Especially helpful as a
contractor when it's helpful to know if that late check is going to be
arriving later in the day or if you should hound the client again.

------
chiefalchemist
Wasn't there a similar thread on HN a couple months ago about this? I remember
commenting about the privacy issues, etc. and was told that USPS is really
taking digital images of all the mail, and this is simply offering that as a
service. There was a link to support that comment as well.

That is, if you're concern about your gov monitoring your mail, that genie is
out of the bottle and ain't never going back.

~~~
gfo
The biggest privacy issue I can imagine here is if you see someone else's mail
through the portal. A few anecdotes about this happening in the comments are
concerning, but I was already under the impression USPS was doing some sort of
digital imaging and OCR to efficiently sort the mail so my impression is this
just gives you the ability to see those images.

Am I missing something?

------
chrsstrm
Outside of the (valid) privacy concerns, I use this and considered it an
awesome tool. Then I ran into the good old efficiency and effort of the USPS
we all know and love... I was expecting a rather important document from the
government, so when the image of it showed up in my Informed Delivery email, I
knew to go to the mailbox that day, but the letter never arrived. Instructions
on the USPS site tell you that even though you see an image of the mail piece,
it might not arrive for up to +7 days later and they ask you to wait the full
7 days before declaring your mail missing - there is a feature where you click
on a link to report a specific piece of mail as not delivered. So I wait
exactly 7 days and what do you know, the link to report that letter is
expired. They expire the damn link 7 days after the email is sent, which means
if you follow directions you are sent into a literal black hole because
apparently no one on the team tested for obvious logical conflicts. The letter
never arrived and my report on this glaring flaw was never responded to.

------
gyc
I signed up for it when living at my old apartment. When I moved out of the
apartment, I somehow got locked out of my USPS account so I could not update
the settings to indicate that I had moved out. So now everyday I get an e-mail
showing the incoming USPS mail of the person currently living at my old
apartment.

------
arcticbull
I highly recommend a service like virtualpostmail (there's a few, but this is
the one I use). They're a commercial mail receiving service. You get a new
address (like a PO, but deliverable by everyone -- though this gets tricky
with credit card billing addresses). Once mail gets delivered, you get a scan
of the front side. Then you can choose to have it shredded, scanned to PDF or
delivered to you.

This is great for a lot of reasons: (1) Americans move an average of 12 times
in their lives, and changing addresses is a huge PITA. This gives you a
forever-mailing-address (well, as long as you keep paying). (2) Practically
never deal with physical letter mail again, just PDFs (3) If you get that once
in a blue moon letter you actually want, they'll just mail it to you.

Not free, but IMO worth every penny.

~~~
0xffff2
Their pricing seems awfully steep. I could see this service being worth maybe
$5/mo, but $30? I can't imagine paying $30/mo just so I don't have to change
addresses when I move.

------
nkozyra
This is still a security concern.

I live in a building in NYC with a shared mailbox for both apartments. I can
see every piece of mail my neighbor gets.

Granted, I see this when I open the mailbox, but having a digital record of it
in inherently insecure email is a bit concerning.

~~~
chrismeller
Email aspect aside, if you have a shared mailbox it’s actually not inherently
any less secure... you could be taking a picture of every piece of mail every
day anyway. Their privacy isn’t really being violated any more or less than it
already was.

~~~
nkozyra
I mentioned that; but it's effectively me making a decision for someone else
to have images of their mail disseminated electronically via an insecure
route.

------
dontbenebby
My only complaint is you need a separate account for each address. (So if you
have a PO box and a residence, you need to sign up for 2 separate USPS.com
accounts to get informed delivery for both)

------
turtlebits
I redirected these to my spam box after at least 60% of the e-mails I received
had no image and the text "A piece of mail that we do not have for is included
in today's mail".

------
turc1656
I recently moved and found out about this when I signed up for the change of
address and mail forwarding. It works well for me. I get daily emails with
photos of what's coming. The image sizes are small but still clear - which is
good because that keeps the email size to a very small level, even on days
with a lot of mail. There's some things that don't have images for some
unknown reason, but overall it works well for me and I'm impressed with the
service.

------
sammycdubs
The recommendation I've seen about how to deal with the potential
privacy/security implications is to sign up for it even if you don't use it.
This lets you "park" your address, so you're notified of any changes or if
anyone tries to sign up for your address maliciously.

[https://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/informed-
delivery/](https://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/informed-delivery/)

------
mwexler
Seems like it should be more useful than it is. I unsubbed after 3 months.
Seeing an envelope didn't really give me much info as a consumer. Perhaps on a
long trip or something, it would be more useful.

Now, if I could have selected things to trash immediately to reduce the waste,
or if the entire message could have been digitized... well, that would be
helpful. Companies have come and gone offering services like this, but no one
has gotten it quite right for now.

~~~
ars
I use it to make sure I'm getting all my mail.

And yes, I've found some letters that never showed up. I clicked the button
saying it was missing and it showed up a few days later.

------
vinay427
I love this service, though it has a sometimes disappointingly high number of
pieces of mail for which no picture is available.

Anyway, as I'm currently out of the country I can view the mail sent to my
family's address which now serves as my US mail address, though I definitely
understand how this would be a privacy concern if you have multiple
"households" at the same address.

------
humblebee
off topic: Is there some service by USPS where I can have a P.O. Box, but have
my mail forwarded to any address?

I find myself having to move a lot, and trying to keep track of all the
addresses I need to update is challenging for myself. I'd love to have a
service where I can send my mail and only make an address change on that
service when I need to update my mailing address.

------
octorian
I love this service for the parcel data, for pretty much the same reasons as
the UPS and FedEx equivalents. It means I actually know what parcels are
headed my way, regardless of whether or not someone explicitly gave me a
tracking number. Makes it much easier to know when I'm getting something.

------
tzs
One annoying limitation (at least when I signed up) is that a given USPS.com
account can only manage it for one mailbox. If you have more than one mailbox,
such as the mailbox in front of your house and a separate PO box, you need to
have two separate USPS.com accounts.

------
homero
I've used the beta for a year, it's pretty good but there's a few bugs. And it
adds anxiety because now I'm aware of letters that didn't arrive then show up
later. Before i wouldn't have thought about it. I save the email until i get
it.

------
kirillzubovsky
That’s great, can they now stop selling my mailbox space to advertisers.
Incredibly annoying - many government services make it basically mandatory to
have a mailing address, and there is now way to stop pounds of junk that land
into it on daily basis.

------
sairahul82
I have been using it for past 8 months. It is very useful service and worked
most of the time. I did get couple of times the scans of other people mails
but mostly its great. I did find some missing packages once because of local
mail delivery mishap.

------
tlobes
I signed up for this after moving out of my apartment and temporarily set up
forwarding to my a freind’s address. It’s a great service, though I realized
no confirmation was needed for me to start getting this info.

------
cphoover
Product idea: Image classification for incoming mail to set alerts when you
are sent certain mail... Some things that come to mind: bills, jury duty,
speed camera tickets... etc.

Anyone interested in working on this? LMK

~~~
eli
[https://www.earthclassmail.com/](https://www.earthclassmail.com/) among
others

------
cweiss
Nice - I signed up for it and I'm seeing images of mail being sent to my
previous address (that's actually addressed to the current occupants, not my
mail being mis-delivered).

------
edwhitesell
Of course, if you don't sign up, make sure you DO opt out of Informed
Delivery. Otherwise someone else may sign up and get copies of all your mail
sent to them without your knowledge.

------
AcerbicZero
Kramer had the right idea. I want out of this mail thing, entirely.

------
miguelmota
Been looking for a way to get USPS physical mail notifications. Worst case
scenario everybody will see that I get utility bills just like everyone else.

------
RyanShook
Have been using this service for over a year. Seems to be pretty insecure from
stories I have read but I appreciate the convenience.

------
geuis
I had to disable this because of the sheer volume of email I started getting
from USPS.

~~~
ars
They send one message a day. Did you get more than that?

~~~
geuis
Yeah, it was too much. I hate noise in my inbox.

------
jonathankoren
Ahh... the feel when you convert your warrantless mass surveillance program (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_Isolation_Control_and_Tra...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_Isolation_Control_and_Tracking)
) into a consumer value add.

------
visviva
Why though?

~~~
Shivetya
I use it to know when something important is to arrive. they also will list
packages to. I don't care for much of what shows. Magazines never have a
picture but get a blank stating no picture for the piece is available.

it just comes down to convenience. they already scan everything so why not
take advantage of it. would I pay for the service, probably not unless the
cost per month as trivial

~~~
dylan604
>Magazines never have a picture but get a blank stating no picture for the
piece is available.

This is interesting. We have this service for my address, but don't get
magazines so I haven't seen it. I wonder if this has to do with the
size/format of the scanner being designed for envelopes only, or if it's
something crazy like fear of copyright infringement?

------
cinquemb
Monetization of the surveillance program they long had in place? Not bad.

------
exabrial
Can I just have all of my mail emailed to me? That'd be great.

------
silveira
I have being using this for a while. It's quite nice.

------
odysseus
Can multiple people at the same address sign up for this?

------
cpr
Been using this for over a year.

It's so spotty it's useless.

------
cft
I have been using virtualpostmail.com to scan my mail. Much better.

------
mikro2nd
Sounds like USPS is joining the panopticon-purveying surveillance capitalism
game. "It's only metadata..."

~~~
wil421
It’s well known the FBI monitors mail going through USPS. They are able to
flag addresses or people for inspection and backtrack all mail.[1][2] People
used to send a lot more bombs through the mail and recently anthrax. I’m
supprised it’s not so well known.

I’m not sure you have an expectation of privacy sending mail through anyone
like USPS, FedEx, and UPS. They can open whatever they want at any time.
Tracking packages should be trivial.

[1][https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-
ma...](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/us/monitoring-of-snail-mail.html)

[2][https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_Isolation_Control_and_T...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mail_Isolation_Control_and_Tracking)

~~~
dontbenebby
>I’m not sure you have an expectation of privacy sending mail through anyone
like USPS, FedEx, and UPS

One of these things is not like the others.

By law, first class mail cannot be opened without a warrant, absent exigent
circumstances (eg: it's ticking), it's crossing an international border, or
subject to a FISA warrant.[1]

Those protections do not apply to UPS or Fedex.

[1] [https://www.rstreet.org/2014/11/19/yes-the-government-can-
op...](https://www.rstreet.org/2014/11/19/yes-the-government-can-open-your-
mail-without-a-warrant/)

~~~
exegete
Yes, there are legal protections for the contents of your (USPS) mail, but I
don't think there is much of an expectation of privacy when it comes to
information on the outside of your mail (the "metadata").

------
unstatusthequo
Hey at least the government will have copies of ll your mail now too.

~~~
cascom
they've been doing this for years (and providing copies to law enforcement)
they're just letting you see it now!

[https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-
confirm...](https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/03/us/postal-service-confirms-
photographing-all-us-mail.html)

------
EGreg
I wanted to use this to finally PROVE that I mailed xyz content and not simply
that receipt was signed for a box.

But NO, they don’t get it and only scan the outside.

Is there a service that will actually print the stuff I email and mail it?

