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Post by stompie on Feb 8, 2021 6:41:52 GMT
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Post by distractedmom on Feb 9, 2021 1:36:47 GMT
...And I've had letters that have been returned to me even though they had the correct address on the front.
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oregonclaire
Pencils
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Looking for Penpals?: Yes. Global penpals welcome
Country I live in is: USA
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Post by oregonclaire on Feb 9, 2021 20:05:40 GMT
...And I've had letters that have been returned to me even though they had the correct address on the front. My favorite was the letter with the correct address on the front, stamps cancelled, and delivered to me because I'd put the return address (mine) on the back (as opposed to the top left corner). I mean, really?
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Post by InsomniaQueen on Feb 9, 2021 22:24:07 GMT
...And I've had letters that have been returned to me even though they had the correct address on the front. My favorite was the letter with the correct address on the front, stamps cancelled, and delivered to me because I'd put the return address (mine) on the back (as opposed to the top left corner). I mean, really? I've had at least four letters returned to me in the last 6 months because I put the return address on the back, even though the recipient address was in the correct spot and the stamps were in the correct spot and canceled. On one of the letters, I wrote the recipient address in big bold letters and the return address on the back was in tiny print. I have since given up on putting the return address on the back.
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Post by jamberrychoux on Feb 10, 2021 3:59:16 GMT
My favorite was the letter with the correct address on the front, stamps cancelled, and delivered to me because I'd put the return address (mine) on the back (as opposed to the top left corner). I mean, really? I've had at least four letters returned to me in the last 6 months because I put the return address on the back, even though the recipient address was in the correct spot and the stamps were in the correct spot and canceled. On one of the letters, I wrote the recipient address in big bold letters and the return address on the back was in tiny print. I have since given up on putting the return address on the back. During INCO times, I have that happen to me too a fair amount. A penfriend told me that when letters get dumped into some type of scanning machine at the post office, depending on how the letter landed first in the machine, it may think that the back of your envelope is the front of the envelope if it scans ("sees") first an address on the backside. So, she cautioned me that every time I do that, I run the risk of my letter getting sent back to me. But, a lot of times, we both write our return address on the back because we use the front side of the envelope to decorate in some way, and oftentimes there is no room for the return address, or we don't want to put it there because it ruins the mail art theme. She tries to break up the return address so that part of it is written vertically and part of it is written out horizontally so that the machine is less likely to see it as a whole address. I've been doing that on some letters just as an experiment.
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Post by InsomniaQueen on Feb 10, 2021 5:20:34 GMT
I've had at least four letters returned to me in the last 6 months because I put the return address on the back, even though the recipient address was in the correct spot and the stamps were in the correct spot and canceled. On one of the letters, I wrote the recipient address in big bold letters and the return address on the back was in tiny print. I have since given up on putting the return address on the back. During INCO times, I have that happen to me too a fair amount. A penfriend told me that when letters get dumped into some type of scanning machine at the post office, depending on how the letter landed first in the machine, it may think that the back of your envelope is the front of the envelope if it scans ("sees") first an address on the backside. So, she cautioned me that every time I do that, I run the risk of my letter getting sent back to me. But, a lot of times, we both write our return address on the back because we use the front side of the envelope to decorate in some way, and oftentimes there is no room for the return address, or we don't want to put it there because it ruins the mail art theme. She tries to break up the return address so that part of it is written vertically and part of it is written out horizontally so that the machine is less likely to see it as a whole address. I've been doing that on some letters just as an experiment. Let me know how it goes.
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Post by allanorn on Feb 10, 2021 6:15:46 GMT
During INCO times, I have that happen to me too a fair amount. A penfriend told me that when letters get dumped into some type of scanning machine at the post office, depending on how the letter landed first in the machine, it may think that the back of your envelope is the front of the envelope if it scans ("sees") first an address on the backside. So, she cautioned me that every time I do that, I run the risk of my letter getting sent back to me. But, a lot of times, we both write our return address on the back because we use the front side of the envelope to decorate in some way, and oftentimes there is no room for the return address, or we don't want to put it there because it ruins the mail art theme. She tries to break up the return address so that part of it is written vertically and part of it is written out horizontally so that the machine is less likely to see it as a whole address. I've been doing that on some letters just as an experiment. The USPS Domestic Mail Manual may be of help. I wonder if the OCR readers they employ are so good that orientation of a letter doesn't matter so much and thus it can go through the machine in any order. If that's the case, it can read your return address on the reverse of the envelope upside down, which might place it in the OCR hit box. I rarely write my return address on the back, but when I do I write it all on one line near the top of the letter with FROM: included. (I have to do this for aerogrammes sometimes.) That usually throws off the OCR readers enough to recognize it's not a valid address, or at least the FROM part gives the machine and/or someone looking at it an obvious clue that the other side has the recipient's addresses. The problem with horizontal/vertical addressing is that the standard says the length of a mailpiece is relative to the orientation of the address. If it's not to standard it can end up being rejected as nonmailable. DMM 102 (2.1) and DMM 601 (1.1) cover it in gruesome bureaucratic detail. A lot of those standards are why I try not to get too cute with envelopes and stamp placement....
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Post by ole on Feb 10, 2021 12:51:56 GMT
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Post by penguy on Feb 10, 2021 15:06:38 GMT
I quite often go by the return address label on the envelope, but I notice the return address label doesn't always correspond to the way the post office wants the address written. Also, when I see some postal codes handwritten it is hard to tell what the code is if it is 545 or S45, done in a hurry an S and a 5 look almost identical.
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Post by ole on Feb 10, 2021 15:33:33 GMT
I quite often go by the return address label on the envelope, but I notice the return address label doesn't always correspond to the way the post office wants the address written. Also, when I see some postal codes handwritten it is hard to tell what the code is if it is 545 or S45, done in a hurry an S and a 5 look almost identical. Hmm, do they really use S and 5 in an ambiguous way? Canada Post avoids that problem by alternating numbers and letters so you even know if it's an "O" or a zero. Like this LNL NLN ie, V5S 5N0. I don't know if that's a real postal code or not, but it's doable.
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Post by ole on Feb 10, 2021 15:50:17 GMT
We had a similar delivery experience back in about 1959, a couple of years after we had moved to Canada. The letter had my father's name and Canada! I mean what kind of *%#$ does that? lol Canada is over 5,000 miles from side to side. In any case, some bright person in the lost letter department presumably noted that there were a considerable number of Danes immigrating to Vancouver on the west coast in recent times and they sent it to that city. From there they were able to find us in the phone book and the letter arrived at our house! Whether or not they would go to all that trouble in 2021, I don't know.
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oregonclaire
Pencils
Posts: 96
Looking for Penpals?: Yes. Global penpals welcome
Country I live in is: USA
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Post by oregonclaire on Feb 10, 2021 16:37:57 GMT
We had a similar delivery experience back in about 1959, a couple of years after we had moved to Canada. The letter had my father's name and Canada! I mean what kind of *%#$ does that? lol Canada is over 5,000 miles from side to side. In any case, some bright person in the lost letter department presumably noted that there were a considerable number of Danes immigrating to Vancouver on the west coast in recent times and they sent it to that city. From there they were able to find us in the phone book and the letter arrived at our house! Whether or not they would go to all that trouble in 2021, I don't know. That's amazing!
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Post by mrsduffy on Feb 20, 2021 20:37:08 GMT
...And I've had letters that have been returned to me even though they had the correct address on the front. Me too. It makes me think that somebody at the post office can't read cursive. Once I had two consecutive cards to the same address returned. The third one was hand delivered. And no, I'm not switching to block print.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Feb 21, 2021 8:59:19 GMT
I rarely write my return address on the back, but when I do I write it all on one line near the top of the letter with FROM: included. This is the standard in Germany. It's not common to have the return address on the front. I have never had a letter returned to me.
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Post by ginny on Feb 21, 2021 12:11:21 GMT
I rarely write my return address on the back, but when I do I write it all on one line near the top of the letter with FROM: included. This is the standard in Germany. It's not common to have the return address on the front. I have never had a letter returned to me. Obviously many people don't follow these rules, though.
And I have had letters returned to me because of that.
So, it obviously depends a bit on where you live and how your local sorting centre is wired
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