dphoenix, Anybody can make up a phone number, a fake address, a bogus recipient... No going around in circles...I'm just being very clear. Anybody can do that. Also, my reference was that the USPS was going to do something that others like UPS has been doing for many many years...long before Sept 2001... please re-read my initial comments. I also said in a prior response directly to you the following in agreement that one can make up a fake number and telling you that such does happen... http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28401&perpage=1&pagenumber=8 Are you reading my replies to you? However, once someone does provide fake info...the odds of that package being delivered drops dramatically and such types of non-deliverable packages I handle myself and allowed for further inspection... Most common reason for a fake number in my experience was that someone was in a in a rush or because they felt it was private info. I would be given a phone number like... (111) 111-1111 I would just smile at the sender and tell them what can happen if the delivery address isn't correct, receiver not home or driver error in attempting to deliver it to the wrong address. The package gets put aside...inspected later to see if there's contact info on the inside that's different from the info on the outside. Lets put it this way...if your shipping something important and needs to be delivered and you paid for such... That's not the time to be playing cat and mouse games with the people that has your package and you no longer have that package And there are folks that do such and the main reason why their packages end up in that warehouse. Once again...no going around in circles...anybody can make up any bogus delivery info and there's nothing to prevent such from happening. Lets put it this way...if I ever decide to give fake delivery info...I better have complete confidence the person that's delivering that package is not a newbie driver and can manage to deliver the package anyways without inspecting it or confidence that someone isn't behind schedule that day and decides to bring it back to their center as non-deliverable when in fact they never attempted a delivery... You'll be surprise how often the latter happens. Once again...if someone wants to fake delivery info...there's nothing to stop them. It just gives drivers another reason to send that package somewhere else for closer inspection. Something else...things are becoming more high tech from what I hear from my friends that still deliver for the USPS and UPS... If a package doesn't get delivered for whatever reason but has a phone number...regardless if its a bogus number or not... They simply look up the phone number on the package and redirect the package for delivery that correlates that phone number to an address... If the phone number doesn't correlate to anything... it gets sent to that warehouse I mentioned earlier in this thread or returned to sender. Note: The sender is contacted to see if they are willing to pay for it being sent back to them... if not...if its documents...its destroyed... if its material...it will be open, inspected then sent to that infamous warehouse. There's been some well-documented cases at USPS and UPS about catching shipping of illegal items this way. Last known case I heard about was uncovering a child pornography ring... A guy gave a bogus phone number and the package was accidentally delivered to the wrong address (USPS fault)... Like I said...if its important and your willing to pay for it to be shipped... Regardless if your shipping something legal or not... Your best option is to provide current contact info to prevent any problems. If providing fake info is a need...best to hand deliver the item yourself to protect whatever it is your trying to protect. NihabaAshi
"In addition, in Canada...if a document (letter) or package is moving within country (from one Canadian address to another Canadian address) they can open at random anything..." Geez I am not sure I 'll be moving to Canada after all. Postal workers: I am sure they are not all like that but I remember one or two at the local Post office and they always seemed to move around their office in slow motion.
Yes, I'm reading your replies, but they don't relate to the subject of the thread. Of course, if someone wants to be contacted, he should leave a legitimate number. But if the point of asking for a number is to make it more difficult for "terrorists" to mail packages, then the policy is silly since there is nothing to prevent the sender from giving a false number. Although if he's dumb enough to get the address wrong, he's probably dumb enough to leave his telephone number.
Yep, The last well known documentation of a Canadian citizen having his mail open at random was someone in parliment... Last I heard...he wanted to change that law NihabaAshi
And it may get worse....the service is getting more automated taking away from human work hours yet they hire more and more people.... And God forbid they fire someone...
Actually my subjects do relate to the topic of the thread... In addition...the point of asking for a phone number is for many reasons and one of those reasons is the terrorist issue. Once again...the USPS system is simply trying to improve their documentation (paper trail) for a delivery from one point to the next point... The terrorist issue is a reason for them to get off their butts and get a reliable tracking system like their competitors... something everybody in the delivery business knows the USPS is poor at. All major delivery services have already been doing this type of "knowing where its going and whom is getting it"...long before Sept of 2001. Thus, nothing to do with terrorism although someone recently told me UPS has a similar "anti-terrorism" policy... I laughed and told them I know for fact they've been using such since 1986 and it doesn't scare away customers. However, my mom is a USPS employee (center manager) and she recently told me their volume of letters and packages has decreased at her center... mainly because of high tech reasons and nothing to do with new regulations to combat terroism. Here's an example...I use to mail photographs to the U.S. or send a post card to my U.S. relatives Last fall I stop doing such via the mail... I simply log into my Walmart Photo account...upload my digital images or scanned negatives into my Walmart Photo folder... Have prints made for pickup at the nearest Walmart to my relatives... In case of my mom...its a 10min walking distance. Now she does the same with her personal photograhs, emails scanned documents and attaches them to emails, pays her bills via online. All via online and no documentation, no USPS and not because of a anti-terrorist policy that's asking way too much info via asking for a phone number P.S. When I open my account with Walmart...they asked for the phone number of the person that will be picking up the photos and asked for my phone number for any problems NihabaAshi
If you like. I'm going by the initial post. But, I agree. If a terrorist wants to contacted in case his letter or package is undeliverable, he should definitely leave his address and phone number