OPINION
Until Christmas Eve, my understanding of a postmark was that the piece of mail would bear such a mark the day the local post office staff handled it.
That meant same day for when I dropped an envelope into the mail on a day the post office was open or the first day it was open after I had dropped the piece in the mail.
As of Dec. 24, however, the United States Postal Service has published a new rule that, it said, “does not change any existing postal operations or postmarking practices, but is instead intended to improve public understanding of postmarks and their relationship to the date of mailing.”
I’m not sure how accurate that statement is, because the general understanding of the public and several governmental agencies was that if you got it in by the collection time, it would have a postmark for that day, and that would count as when you sent the mail.
Whether the rule drastically changed or it has always been misunderstood, the reality is the USPS will be handling postmarks this way moving forward.
That is because “while the presence of a postmark on a mailpiece confirms that the Postal Service was in possession of the mailpiece on the date of the postmark’s inscription, the postmark date does not inherently or necessarily align with the date on which the Postal Service first accepted possession of the mailpiece,” according to federalregister. gov.
It’s possible for the mail to be circulating in the USPS system before the postmark would be applied, if one is applied.
“The Proposed Rule further noted that this lack of alignment has and will become more common with the implementation of the Regional Transportation Optimization (RTO) initiative and the corresponding adoption of ‘leg’based service standards,” according to federalregister. gov. To read that yourself, go to bit. ly/4pqLvUE. The information about the Regional Transportation Optimization initiative can be found here: bit.ly/4jO61O1.
The postmark policy matters for anyone who still sends checks in the mail for bill payments, for tax purposes and for voting by mail.
If you want to know the postmark your mail will have, you have a couple of options.
One is to walk into the lobby of the post office to interact with a staff member and ask for a free postmark to be applied.
This version is free monetarily, but it will cost your time, if you must go at a high-volume time, so plan ahead for that if possible.
On Jan. 2, the USPS issued an FAQ page about what it deems myths about postmarks.
That can be found at bit.ly/3NwcKjb.
“Customers who wish to retain a record or proof of the date on which the Postal Service first accepted possession of their mailpiece(s) may purchase a Certificate of Mailing. Registered Mail and Certified Mail services also provide mailing receipts for individual mailpieces,” according to usps.com.
For the information regarding the postmark process as it went into effect on Dec. 24, visit bit. ly/4qeM2dy.
This approach by the USPS means we, as customers, have to be more prepared when sending things that matter.
Abigail Bardwell is the Editor & Publisher of the Post-Signal. She can be reached at [email protected].
