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Monday, September 28, 2015

bonus post - return address issues

one of the penpals who signed up for the sept exchange reported that 3 of her envelopes were returned. the return address was at the top, center of the back of the envelope. she has had this happen with regular (non-decorated mail, too) we can't figure out why it has happened. if anyone else has this problem, please let us know. if you are a postal worker and you have any suggestions, please share them with us.

the image to the right is a pretty stamp. i posted it for my mathy-brother because he recently discovered the joy of making images using a pencil and paper. he showed me his first drawings and exclaimed..."gee, i can see how someone would want to just keep making more of these"  -duh- he's trying to explain to ME how mesmerizing pen&paper can be. is anyone besides me LOLROF?


so, brother, do you know what gauss's contributions were? off the top of your head...

check the post below for today's post

BE SURE TO READ THE COMMENTS: there are two good suggestions. thank you to cathy and alyce for responding.

8 comments:

  1. This happens because the return address has been read by mistake during automation and is sent right back to you. Almost all letter mail comes to the carriers in the order in which it is delivered and they don't catch the error. If this happens be sure to blacken out the bar code or the envelope will return like a boomerang. Make friends with your local window clerk and beg him/her to cancel your envelope and put it in a tray of mail that is already canceled (metered mail). I use a round return address stamp and this has not happened to me but I have had quite a few customers who are upset that their mail is not getting to it's destination.

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  2. This has happened to me many times. It's very frustrating. I remedied this by writing my name and address across the very top of the flap in a single line.

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  3. thank you for these comments. i had an email from another person who has had trouble. i guess i am just super lucky that it has never happened to me.

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  4. When I mailed out my rehearsal dinner invitations for my son's wedding, I had 2 that were returned to me, basically as being delivered to me. I had them hand cancelled and it still happened, which I found to be very odd. My lovely carrier who is very gracious to hand cancel and make sure my mail is handled with care just shrugged his shoulders and could offer no explanation.

    I've had a very hard time getting one particular envelope to Eric in France, which has nothing to do with the return address. It has now been returned to me twice. The very odd thing is the previous month, I actually misspelled his address - and since it wasn't returned, I'm hoping it did get to him, but if I spell it correctly, it seemingly is returned! LOL

    The return stamp on the envelope states that the country is not written in English. Is there another way to spell France in English? And states that there is no foreign postage on the envelope. Well, since I'm mailing it in the USA, I'm curious, do I need to buy French postage to get it there? It's all very odd to me. I am putting more than the needed amount to carry it to France, or how ever you spell it!

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    1. wow - this is pretty extreme. i wonder if you took it to the PO if they would put it in one of their special envelopes that they use to forward damaged mail. i have had them offer to put my mail into one of their envelopes with a window when they were concerned about it reaching its destination.

      the only alternative to france -that i can think of is - phrantz

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  5. I always put the return address on the center of the flap & have never had a problem. I have sent 2 envelopes to Eric & put France as the bottom line of the address and again no problem. Maybe just some workers don't know.

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  6. I dont know if my envelopes are getting to their destinations but none have come back so far, I put mine up the top of the flap at the back. I like the US way where you put the address on the top left hand corner of the front side of the envelope, no way they can get that wrong unless the machines are reading the top address. Sometimes when I really want a parcel especially to get there I will put the same address on the front and back so they will never send it back to me because the cant hahhaha. My address will be in the parcel or the letter inside if they really wanted to deliver it back to me

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  7. Sometimes the machines do read the small return address on the front. I've found that if you don't have your zip (postal) code as part of the return address it is unlikely to be misdirected by a machine as the machines look for numbers.

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