Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related FFQ: US Mail and other delivery firms

Pretend you received an anonymous letter or small package in the post. How much could you tell about its origins from the envelope - ie, do letters and small packages sent through the US mail get franked with a time and place of posting?

What about if you got an anonymous package from one of those delivery companies like UPS? You sign for the package, and then what? I guess you could probably trace it back with UPS, but maybe not all the way back to the sender?

Or, look at it another way - if you wanted to send an anonymous package and make sure it wasn't traceable back to you (including when and where you sent it from), what would you do?

Thanks!

Yvonne

Try www.usps.com

You know, since all the terrorism awareness, and anthrax attacks sending anonymous mail is probably very difficult.

But as this is fanfic, you can forget all that...

Um... off the top of my head, I'm not sure. Stamped US Mail gets postmarked, with a date and location. However, that's just the place where the thing was mailed; you could drive anywhere to send a letter or a package. UPS labels have return addresses -- these days you can track the package, though in L&C-world they probably can't.

If I wanted to send something anonymously, I think I'd use a fake return address, and arrange for it to get mailed from out of town, or better yet, out of state. It could be tracked back to that post office, but by then I'd be long gone, so the trail would end.

PJ

Some of this does depend on time. There's a lot you can do now that you couldn't in 1996.

UPS keeps sender info on the package itself. They won't take a package without it. I think the same goes for most other package delivery companies. Nowadays, you can even log into UPS's website to track your packages as they go from state to state.

The closest you can get to anonymous is to drop a letter in a mailbox on the street (the blue things found here and there, mostly near post offices, libraries, and other gov't buildings, but sometimes on seemingly random streets. I believe their UK counterparts are red pillars).

When it gets picked up, it'll be brought to the nearest post office. Assuming it has proper postage and everything, they'll stamp it with a postmark. That tells you the day it was stamped and the post office that stamped it.

From that point, it simply gets sorted and sent. Any other info will come from you. If you don't mark a return address and are careful to wear gloves (even though fingerprints will probably be smudged during sorting, handling, and delivery), the recipient will never know anything more than the day and town where it was collected.

That assumes, however, that you're just sending a letter. I'm not sure of the exact restrictions, but at a certain point, a large bulky envelope becomes a package, and that must be sent by package delivery (FedEx is an extension of the post office, but UPS or DHL or another service is perfectly acceptable).

Hope this helps.

Paul

Fantastic! This is exactly what I need - thank you, everyone.

You know, the first time I came to the US, it took me ages to realise these blue rubbish bins I saw scattered around on street corners were actually post boxes. Silly me!

The reverse is true, too, Yvonne. A friend of a friend almost got yanked out of teachers' seminary in England when her mother received no letters for a month -- the deal was three times a week.

An angry phone call produced a tearful but insistent daughter. She had been faithfully writing a letter home every day! Turns out what she thought were post-office-boxes were garbage cans . . . oops!

oh, ROFL!!! That's priceless!

Yvonne
(So glad it wasn't just me being dumb )

Hi everyone,