Might You Pay More for Mailings?

09/05/2008

New postal rules that require businesses to pay more for outdated addresses are on the table, according to ASI. If the measure is approved, bulk mailers will be required to update their lists every 95 days. The current requirement states lists must be updated every 185 days. Noncompliance won’t be cheap, either; mailers could pay seven cents for every piece of mail, not just those that are undeliverable.

Under previous United States Postal Service rules, no fines are levied for undeliverable mail, but the seven-cent amount was determined by the difference between the presort rate and the cost for first-class mail, which is the rate applied to undeliverable-as-addressed mail.

The USPS hopes to save money with the new regulation, which will be effective November 23, and reduce costs and waste from undeliverable bulk mail by 50 percent by 2010.

An estimated that 9.7 billion pieces of undeliverable-as-addressed mail cost the USPS $2 billion a year to process.