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If I have mail on hold while I'm moving, then do a change of address, does the on hold mail get forwarded?
Or would I need to pick up the held mail at the post office its being held at?
Have you post office hold your mail pending a change of address. Put the change of address in when you're ready. Then notify the post office (ie, your current post office) and they'll put your first class mail in to be forwarded.
Under no circumstances should you trust the Postal "Service" to do anything right. If you want something done, go there yourself in person. Don't call, don't do anything on the internet.
Under no circumstances should you trust the Postal "Service" to do anything right. If you want something done, go there yourself in person. Don't call, don't do anything on the internet.
The last two times I've moved I set up mail forwarding/holds via the USPS website. No trouble with anything.
Under no circumstances should you trust the Postal "Service" to do anything right. If you want something done, go there yourself in person. Don't call, don't do anything on the internet.
Whether you do a change o line or hand a form to a window clerk makes no difference to the end user the carrier who has to pull your hold mail to forward. Although you can retrieve what was held to that point.
However when done online the change information goes to the Postal Automated Redirection System (PARS) and doesn't have to wait for a carrier to sign off on a change of address and then send it to their central forwarding office and only then would the information go to PARS after those extra steps. And every step increases the possibility of delay or a keystroke error.
What PARS does is at that first computer an out going letter hits the system ask if there is a forwarding order for this address and if yes does the name match for the forwarding order. And that catches most first class mail. While your old carrier might intercept the pieces that make it through PARS, if his memory can keep track of all the current forwarding orders on his route. Perhaps your name was spelled wrong or the piece was not automation friendly. If you do not have a regular carrier or he was off on that day and a substitute delivered that portion of the route then the piece that did not get forwarded by PARS is likely to be delivered as addressed and you can only hope that someone is at your old address willing to give the piece back to the carrier. And many give it back by obliterating the information needed for the central forwarding computers to work with a nasty note questioning the intelligence of the carrier.
Under no circumstances should you trust the Postal "Service" to do anything right. If you want something done, go there yourself in person. Don't call, don't do anything on the internet.
Good advice.
In February, we set up Mail Hold for 3 weeks (did this online, got their confirmation email).
After returning home, opened our mail box and a giant wave of mail cascaded out of it.
I went to the post office with their confirmation to pick up our mail .... Postal clerk went looking and after about 10 minutes came back with zero mail and informed me that our online request did not make it to the mail man. .
In February, we set up Mail Hold for 3 weeks (did this online, got their confirmation email).
After returning home, opened our mail box and a giant wave of mail cascaded out of it.
I went to the post office with their confirmation to pick up our mail .... Postal clerk went looking and after about 10 minutes came back with zero mail and informed me that our online request did not make it to the mail man. .
The SOPs assume that a carrier can be found for every route. However the postal service can no longer staff and deliver 6 days a week in many districts without massive overtime if even then. In the end it doesn't matter if you hand the clerk a yellow half sheet of paper to hold the mail or the carrier supervisor prints out the hold mail order to distribute to that route's carrier. If there is no carrier to prepare that route, hopefully his memory holds while delivering, then someone just picks up mail from the dock to carry along with his route without every seeing either form. be it yellow and hand written by you or typed on a sheet printed out along with other request that morning.
No matter how you requested the hold it won't be seen by a sub because it is faster to roll directly from automated processing to delivery, without checking and pulling hold and forwarding mail. And those extra minutes per route thus allows that unit to deliver to a few extra blocks that day.
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The last two times I've moved I set up mail forwarding/holds via the USPS website. No trouble with anything.
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