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The United States Postal Service (USPS), also known as the Post Office, U.S. Mail, or Postal Service, is an independent agency of the executive branch of the United States federal government responsible for providing postal service in the U.S., including its insular areas and associated states. It is one of the few government agencies explicitly authorized by the Constitution of the United States. The USPS, as of 2021, has 516,636 career employees and 136,531 non-career employees.
The mail or post is a system for physically transporting postcards, letters, and parcels. A postal service can be private or public, though many governments place restrictions on private systems. Since the mid-19th century, national postal systems have generally been established as a government monopoly, with a fee on the article prepaid. Proof of payment is usually in the form of an adhesive postage stamp, but a postage meter is also used for bulk mailing.
A postal code is a series of letters or digits or both, sometimes including spaces or punctuation, included in a postal address for the purpose of sorting mail.
A ZIP Code is a system of postal codes used by the United States Postal Service (USPS). Introduced on July 1, 1963, the basic format consisted of five digits. In 1983, an extended ZIP+4 code was introduced; it included the five digits of the ZIP Code, followed by a hyphen and four digits that designated a more specific location.
Postal codes used in the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown dependencies are known as postcodes. They are alphanumeric and were adopted nationally between 11 October 1959 and 1974, having been devised by the General Post Office. A full postcode is known as a "postcode unit" and designates an area with several addresses or a single major delivery point.
Canada Post Corporation, trading as Canada Post, is a Crown corporation that functions as the primary postal operator in Canada. Originally known as Royal Mail Canada, rebranding was done to the "Canada Post" name in the late 1960s, even though it had not yet been separated from the government. On October 16, 1981, the Canada Post Corporation Act came into effect. This abolished the Post Office Department and created the present-day Crown corporation that provides postal service. The act aimed to set a new direction for the postal service by ensuring its financial security and independence.
A Canadian postal code is a six-character string that forms part of a postal address in Canada. Like British, Irish and Dutch postcodes, Canada's postal codes are alphanumeric. They are in the format A1A 1A1, where A is a letter and 1 is a digit, with a space separating the third and fourth characters. As of October 2019, there were 876,445 postal codes using Forward Sortation Areas from A0A in Newfoundland to Y1A in Yukon.
International Distributions Services plc, trading as Royal Mail, Parcelforce and GLS, is a British multinational postal service and courier company, originally established in 1516 as a government department. The company's subsidiary Royal Mail Group Limited operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide (parcels). GLS Group, an international logistics company, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Mail Group. The group used the name Consignia for a brief period in the early 2000s and Royal Mail until October 2022.
A post office box is a uniquely addressable lockable box located on the premises of a post office.
A letter box, letterbox, letter plate, letter hole, mail slot or mailbox is a receptacle for receiving incoming mail at a private residence or business. For outgoing mail, Post boxes are often used for depositing the mail for collection, although some letter boxes are also capable of holding outgoing mail for a carrier to pick up. Letterboxes or mailboxes use the following primary designs:
Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are U.S. federal crimes. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activity crosses interstate or international borders.
An address is a collection of information, presented in a mostly fixed format, used to give the location of a building, apartment, or other structure or a plot of land, generally using political boundaries and street names as references, along with other identifiers such as house or apartment numbers and organization name. Some addresses also contain special codes, such as a postal code, to make identification easier and aid in the routing of mail.
The UPS Store is a franchised subsidiary of United Parcel Service which provides, according to its website, shipping, shredding, printing, fax, passport photos, personal and business mailboxes, and notary services.
Within the United States, a commercial mail receiving agency (CMRA) is a private business that accepts mail from the Postal Service on behalf of third parties. A CMRA may also be known as a mail drop.
The United States Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), or the Postal Inspectors, is the law enforcement arm of the United States Postal Service. It supports and protects the U.S. Postal Service, its employees, infrastructure, and customers by enforcing the laws that defend the nation's mail system from illegal or dangerous use. Its jurisdiction covers any "crimes that may adversely affect or fraudulently use the U.S. Mail, the postal system or postal employees." With roots going back to the late 18th century, the USPIS is the oldest continuously operating federal law enforcement agency.
A "postal address" in Ireland is a place of delivery defined by Irish Standard (IS) EN 14142-1:2011 and serviced by the universal service provider, An Post. Its addressing guides comply with the guidelines of the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the United Nations-affiliated body responsible for promoting standards in the postal industry, across the world.
Post offices and other mail service providers typically offer a mail forwarding service, commonly known as hybrid mail or virtual post office box services, to redirect mail addressed to one location to another address – usually for a given period. In the case of the United States Postal Service's First Class Mail, it is generally for a period of one year. British Royal Mail provides a service called Mail Redirection, enabling redirection for up to two years. Customers of such a service usually, but not exclusively, use mail forwarding when they change an address.
"Accommodation address" is a term used mostly in the United Kingdom to denote a location where mail can be delivered in the name of a person or business for retrieval. The service is similar to poste restante and post office boxes, but is generally supplied by a private company, or even an individual. The degree of service can range from full secretarial and telephone answering, to a simple mail drop. Small businesses use accommodation addresses when they have no fixed place of business, and do not wish to use a post office box, a proper address giving an air of respectability.
Postcodes in Australia are used to more efficiently sort and route mail within the Australian postal system. Postcodes in Australia have four digits and are placed at the end of the Australian address, before the country. Postcodes were introduced in Australia in 1967 by the Postmaster-General's Department and are now managed by Australia Post, Australia's national postal service. Postcodes are published in booklets available from post offices or online from the Australia Post website.
National Change of Address (NCOALink) "is a secure dataset of approximately 160 million permanent change-of-address (COA) records consisting of the names and addresses of individuals, families and businesses who have filed a change-of-address with the USPS". It is maintained by the United States Postal Service and access to it is licensed to service providers and made available to mailers. There are six licenses available including Full Service Providers and Limited Service Providers. The use of NCOALink is required in order to obtain bulk mail rates, as it minimizes the number of UAA mailpieces saving the mailer money and reducing the USPS's processing of this type of mail.
References
- ↑ "Suite Scams". Bloomberg Businessweek. 26 March 2008. Archived from the original on June 30, 2012. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
- ↑ Nufer, Doug (July–August 1999). "Post Office Cries Fraud, Public Cries Foul; Private mail station box holders face rule changes almost nobody wants". (Seattle) Washington Free Press. Retrieved 1 September 2014.
- ↑ Where Should I put the Address on my Mail Item?, USPS.com