mail frauds I love the post office. Despite all the whining about lost letters, the U.S. Postal Service delivers 600 million pieces of mail each day and provides one of the few bargains left in the world. Yet there are still people who try to beat the system. I remember reading about a state senator who would open his mail, answer it, then reseal his reply in the envelope and mark it "return to sender." That's illegal, of course, as is reusing stamps by cutting or steaming them off the envelope, even if they haven't been canceled. When you do this, it's called a "skip" in postal lingo; it violates Section 1720 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. Probably the most famous skipper ever was the Unabomber. The FBI says he often mailed letters with already canceled stamps.
Postal laws make it illegal to use counterfeit stamps (Christmas seals or stickers that resemble stamps) or remove canceling ink. Until the Postal Service changed its ink in the late 1980s, crooks did this with bleach and laundry detergent or water. The Post Office estimates that stamp laundering costs it $100 million annually in lost revenue, a figure now comparable to what businesses steal by rigging postal meters. How did crooks gather canceled stamps? They would bribe janitors and dig through the garbage at banks or utility companies. After retrieving piles of envelopes that had been used by consumers to send in payments, they steamed off the stamps, soaked them and resold them for 10 or 15 cents each. The stamps would be faded, but the crooks told customers that they had been water-damaged, hence the "flood sale." If you attempt to duplicate this stunt and get caught, you'll face a $500 fine or up to a year in prison for each count.
One of the scams that has always fascinated me is the idea that you can reverse the destination and return addresses on a letter, "forget" to put postage on it, and have it delivered free. Or you could take it a step further and put the recipient's address everywhere. In 1996, a homeless man in Miami caused a stir when he left a large envelope next to mailbox. Passersby thought it might be a bomb. Instead, it contained stuff the man hoped to send to relatives. He had placed their address in both the destination and return spots, figuring it would get delivered even without postage. Little did he know he was in violation of Section 1725 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. It might also be punishable as fraud, since he intended to defraud the Post Office of revenues. But it's still kinda interesting.
Another scam is to put insufficient postage on a letter and hope it slides through unnoticed. The Post Office sorting machines cancel stamps at a rate of nine per second, or 30,000 an hour, and the machines only look for the telltale ink present on every stamp over 10 cents in value. For that reason, the only envelopes that get bounced out of the system are those without any stamps. The Postal Service delivers all mail with insufficient postage (although it may soon change this policy); the recipient is supposed to be given a postage-due notice. Many times the delivery person just lets it go (the San Francisco Chronicle tested this in 1997 and found that the Post Office delivered nearly all of 96 letters mailed with less than 32 cents postage). Another popular scam is the idea that, because of some obscure postal law, you can mail any letter for six cents as long as you stamp it First Class. As any postal inspector will tell you, that law was repealed in 1970. Technically, you can mail a letter for as little as a penny as long as the person on the receiving end is willing to pay the postage due.
The Post Office used to deliver mail that had no postage. But according to the book Big Secrets, the agency stopped because so many people would send payments to the IRS, utility companies or other evil entities without stamps, knowing the post office would deliver them postage due. Now if you send a letter without postage, it gets returned. That's why you see reminders on preprinted envelopes in the space where the stamp goes: "Place stamp here. The Post Office will not deliver mail without postage." It's not because they think you're an idiot; it's to remind you that your protest will be in vain. The IRS also no longer accepts postage-due mail. It gets sent back to the disgruntled taxpayer, along with any nasty message he or she wrote on the envelope.
If you do plan to let the IRS know how you feel about taxes, be cautious. Besides being on the lookout for bombs, weapons and child porn, the 2167 agents of the postal inspector's office have jurisdiction over any letter, writing, post card, picture, photograph, newspaper, pamphlet, book or other publication "which contains any matter advocating or urging treason, insurrection or forcible resistance to any law of the United States." Attempting to mail anything like that could land you in prison for 10 years, along with a fine of up to $5000. The same goes for sending an envelope or postcard with "indecent, lewd, lascivious or obscene character" written on it. (For more on postal inspectors, order Julee Peezlee's "Mail Art Postal Hassle Stories," $3 from P.O. Box 11794, Berkeley, CA 94712.)
One final note: Under their franking privileges, members of Congress send some $50 million in free mail a year. They use this in many cases to send out propaganda about their accomplishments. Everyone else, of course, has to get in line and buy stamps.