usps error... mailed to return address

[gregbatch]

It's easy to dismiss 80 out of 100 cards as USPS error. But you would be wise to find the cause for the return address being identified as the delivery address before you end up mailing a larger job with the same issue and get 80% back. I think we can say that is what happened due to the absence of a yellow sticker. I barcode EVERYTHING unless specifically asked not to. Even small jobs that the client is mailing. STID 300 and MID and serial number are 0. Once it sees the barcode it ignores everything else. As long as the mailing address is human readable for the carrier, it will get there.

 

[kdw75]

I printed 100 postcards for one of my agents with variable data... return address upper-left, recipient address in the middle of the card. Agent applied postage stamps then dropped them off at USPS.

We received about 80 of them at my office with identical barcodes that USPS printed on them directing them to my office.

Has this ever happened to any of y'all?

Any suggestion on what I tell my agent? Besides, go get a postage refund from USPS? They're not going to cover the cost of re-printing, right?

Yep. We had the exact same thing happened years ago before the pandemic and the solution was they let us mail them again for free and then they all worked no real explanation except maybe they were run upside down or something. We also had an experience several years ago, where a whole bunch of mail pieces were returned as undeliverable to our customer when they were obviously deliverable since some of the addresses were banks and government offices they again re-tried without any additional postage and were delivered.

 

[Craig]

Line up your mail piece with the bottom right marking and see if your return address falls in the yellow OCR zone. If it does then tuff luck, the USPS scanners pick up the first address they read in that area. We had that happen to a mailer we did for a church. Their design and I told them there would be an issue. They signed off not wanting to correct the design and had several hundred mailed back to the church office.

 

[bill kahny]

Line up your mail piece with the bottom right marking and see if your return address falls in the yellow OCR zone. If it does then tuff luck, the USPS scanners pick up the first address they read in that area. We had that happen to a mailer we did for a church. Their design and I told them there would be an issue. They signed off not wanting to correct the design and had several hundred mailed back to the church office.

Almost the whole mail piece falls into the OCR area on some pieces, position the reply above and left of the delivery in a smaller font size, keep the delivery in an easy to read non script font and fully in the OCR. For invitations where they want a script only do it to the name and company lines.

The rest is on the USPS screw ups.