h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Saw this as part of an answer on Yahoo Answers.

"You CANNOT put something in someones mailbox unless it has a stamp on it, it is against the law. "

There's usually no clue where people are from, could be anywhere but is usually the States.

I think if it's true, it's a law I could fall in love with.

It is definitely not true in the UK.

FB

Perhaps the "someone's" is misunderstood. "You can't put anything in a Post Office letterbox without a stamp on it" makes more sense.

Although, you can, I suppose. The Post Office just wouldn't be very pleased.

Did you ask on the thread?

You can also put things into Royal Mail mailboxes that aren't stamped: what about Freepost? Or franked mail? Sounds like a classic example of nothing so dumb as what's online to me.

I would have thought that franking would be consider a type of "stamp" for the purposes of such a law, as indeed would freepost.

You can put unstamped mail in letterboxes, and Royal Mail does carry it. We just levy a surcharge in addition to the deficient postage.

FB

So if you have a lot of empty envelopes sitting around, address them to the Labour Party and stick them in a mailbox

A popular thing. Though the vast majority of organisations don't pay the surcharges they just let the mail RTS.

It is usually only ordinary folks who like to know what the mail is and collect the items. (and it is mostly organisations that cause items to be surcharged.)

FB

Aaaww.

Hold on. Write "Donation Enclosed" on the envelope

Sorry, perhaps I should have explained more. This is NOT for the UK as clearly I know it's not true here! And it's letter boxes in people's houses and that bit was responding to a comment about putting fliers round neighbours houses.

I think there is a law in NZ that says you can't put unsolicited mail in a person's letter box if you know they don't want it. So some circular deliverers will only deliver certain things if you put up a sign saying you want it (this is in areas where people have made lots of complaints). It's also why when I put 'no junk mail' on my box they're not allowed to deliver junk mail there.

In the US, tit is technically illegal for anyone other than a postal service employee to put anything in a mail box. This doesn't apply to a mail slot which drops mail directly into a residence.

It's certainly not enforced in my area- local businesses stick flyers in my mail box all the time, and I drop my monthly rent check in my landlord's mail box on rent day.

Obviously I meant "it" and not . Sorry about that- cat on my lap disrupting typing.

Gave me a chuckle anyway.

Opting in to junk rather than out and still getting it anyway sounds great to me!

We still get junk *mail* in our mail box- circulars and sale ads, etc- so long as they're sent through the postal system. There's no way to opt out of bulk mail circulars. I get loads and loads of junk and bulk mail and regardless of how many times I ask businesses I patronize to stop sending me catalogs, not only do they not stop but they sometimes send me duplicates.

I don't mind much that local businesses leave business cards or delivery menus, since those are actually useful, though typically they tuck them behind the mailbox and not in it.

It's illegal to take anything out of anyone's mail box but your own without your permission so I guess sticking anything other than mail in would technically be mail tampering as well. I can't see it being enforced unless someone complained, though.

So what do people do who just pass by to drop you a newspaper, or something small and find you not in if they're not allowed to drop it in your letter box?

These days, now that correspondence by post is diminishing as a result of people using e-mail, the ratio of things you drop in people's letter boxes (notes, birthday cards, keys....) as against "real" post must be on the increase?

If it had turned out to apply to the UK, I would have suggested getting Robyn over here. She may still turn up..........

When I was twelve, on holiday in New York with my family, we joined the local Witnesses on their door-to-door preaching ("witnessing" is the term used). One woman spoke to us through her screen door, which she couldn't open because the dog would get out. She was interested enough to accept a small tract, and told us to put it in the mailbox. The local Witness insisted on shoving it around the frame of the screen door instead, and later told us that it was illegal to put anything into another person's mailbox.

TRiG.

A newspaper would never fit in my mailbox. When we subscribed (we no longer do) the paper delivery guy just threw it on the front porch, which seems to be the usual thing. Cards usually come to me by mail, but if someone left me one, I wouldn't complain. Magazines, etc, would come through the mail so those are OK.

My last apartment had a letter slot that dropped everything into the foyer, as did my childhood home, and the law doesn't apply to those so it'd be OK to shove a newspaper into that.

But technically, no, people aren't permitted to drop stuff in the mailbox, but I guess it's something one would have to complain about as opposed to being policed. The post office barely have enough workers to deliver all the mail. I've been dropping my rent checks into the landlord's mail box all these years and no one has had a problem with it. And I do find the occasional menu or flyer that hasn't come through the mail in mine.

Interestingly enough, the answer Mina quoted in the first post is technically incorrect. Putting a stamp on something and then sticking it in my mail box would still be illegal, unless you worked for the post office.

I wish junk mail could be made illegal!!