Woohoo! The US Postal Service [USPS]
comes thru! They’re in the 21st century now!
I work from a home office and I’m one of millions of people in the US who have a post office box [POB or PO Box] for delivery of business mail, rather than having it all come to my house. One of the problems with having a “PO Box” is that I have to go to the post office to pick up the mail, and things don’t arrive every day. Usually there’s mail only one or two days a week.
So when the USPS announced earlier this month their “Real Mail Notification” service, I was really happy. Whenever they put mail into my PO Box they work some magic or other, and then I receive an email saying there’s mail in the box. Checks. Magazines. Legal notices. (LOL) Whatever. There are still a few things that simply must arrive in physical form, and not as email, so this is very useful.
They have an additional service where they (now) will accept FedEx and UPS shipments at the actual post office, then put them into a locker and notify me by email right away. So if I’m going to be out of town for a couple of days, or don’t want a shipment at the house, I can have it sent to the street address of the post office and they’ll accept it on my behalf.
If you do not want the email and text from USPS, what do you do to cancel the real mail notification alerts?
You have to sign up for them in the first place. To turn them off, you go to the postoffice and give them a similar form asking to turn off the alerts.
I cannot turn off the Real Mail Notification. I closed the PO box two months ago. I moved 3,000 miles away. I called the USPS location, but they don’t know how to turn it off either. I wish I had never signed up for this in the first place. Currently, I am on hold with the USPS.
My post office has a paper form that requests the alerts. They said I can fill it out again and “uncheck” the alerts box to turn it off. I’m not going to try that because I like the alerts on my box.
Now, yours might be different if you are not the current owner of the box. Since they have a record, maybe they will listen to logic and let you turn alerts off. Clearly if you are receiving alerts the new owner has not turn on notification themselves.
Then again, the current owner of the box should also be able to turn it off too, but they have no motivation to do that. Maybe they are nice folks and would help you. Get the form from your current office, and mail it, with a cover letter, to your old box with a note asking them to fill it out to cancel the alerts.
Some genius signed up for the service with the wrong number, Mine! Now I get a damn text message every day telling me there is mail in a PO box I don’t own. And there is no way to stop them!
I had to wade through a number of customer service reps, but apparently, you email them at realmailquestions@usps.gov with “Unsubscribe” in the subject line and in the body, write a formal request for them to discontinue the notifications.
Thank you for the unsubscribe information, Sky and Fox. Both suggestions sound very reasonable. I’ve been searching everywhere trying to find out how to stop email notifications. The local PO and 1-800-ASK-USPS don’t have any ideas, and the Internet is mostly just frustrated posts about it. I’ll try your suggestions, and if it works, I’ll post again to tell you and your readers.
Sending a short note to RealMailQuestions@usps.gov worked like a charm. I did as Fox suggested, and a few days later (just now) I got an email saying that my service had been terminated. Thanks Fox!
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOX AND KARIN!!! Just sent my email request, praying that it works for me. I moved almost a year ago and still get those messages!!
The Post Office is a fantastic agency. I wish Congress would stop trying to bankrupt it.
I appreciate that they never lose mail, it is always arriving as predicted. Then this new service for PO Box holders is simply fantastic.
Kudos!
Thank you so much for this information! I’ve been trying for 4 months to cancel the service since I closed my PO Box, and until now no one in any post office or at the USPS customer service has been able to help. I just may inform various USPS workers about the email address.
I tried this ( emailing them a request ) 2 months ago and it didnt work for me but will try again
Renee, make sure you include the information that the post office has on file for you: name on the PO Box, box number and address, your email address or phone number that receives the notifications, and the approximate dates you had the box. Also be sure it goes to RealMailQuestions@USPS.com. Hitting “reply” on the email notification will not work. That address isn’t monitored.
I have never received another notification since I emailed them asking to cancel my service.
Oops, that’s RealMailQuedtions@USPS.gov, not .com
Aargh! “RealMailQuestions@USPS.gov”! Good grief.
Aargh! “RealMailQuestions@USPS.gov.” Good grief.
Thank you, thank you! I don’t know if it will be successful but at least I have something to try. Those pesky notifications are seriously driving me crazy. I just sent an email to the suggested address and will post again once I receive a reply. Thanks again.
Thanks everyone. I just sent it and hope it will be discontinued. The clerks at the post office tried to help. Apparently they could see that I received these, but from that point did not know what to do. They “determined” that it could be stopped only when a box was renewed. ???? What connection is there between alerts and a renewal cycle? ????
Hopefully this will work.
Just received this as an auto reply
Thank you for your inquiry. In order to resolve your concern as quickly as possible, please see below for directions that best describe your situation.
· If you receive Real Mail Notification text message or email alerts for PO Box deliveries, please contact POBinquiry@usps.gov for assistance.
This is just another example of why you don’t let the Federal government run anything.
HOW CAN I REGISTER TO RECEIVE NOTIFICATION TO MY PO BOX RECEIVING CORRESPONDENCE?
I too have been receiving text alerts because I signed up for them because it sounds like such a great idea.
Unfortunately I appear to be receiving them from two separate PO Boxes, even though I’ve moved out of state, etc., etc. The poor sots in the post office themselves have zero idea where these even originate from – much less how to stop them. Then I started getting “customer service satisfaction’ phone calls and she said she had stopped them, that they would slow down and stop (lol) but she was wrong too.
So. I’m psyched to see this idea, I will try it, and assuming it is successful, then when they call me again – I WILL TELL THEM how to do it!
Geesh! LOL
Well… take 2. I also got an auto responder email, reading as follows:
Thank you for your inquiry. In order to resolve your concern as quickly as possible, please see below for directions that best describe your situation.
· If you receive Real Mail Notification text message or email alerts for PO Box deliveries, please contact POBinquiry@usps.gov for assistance.
· If you are receiving alerts regarding packages being delivered to your physical address, please visit http://www.usps.com/help for assistance.
· If you receive Informed Delivery service, please visit http://www.uspsinformeddelivery.com/RMQ for assistance. You may also access this support site by following the link in the bottom of your Informed Delivery Daily Digest.
NOTE:
Informed Delivery is when they take a picture of your mail and you can see it in email. I signed up for that, and then after I moved I continued to get pictures of the new resident’s mail. Sheesh. Not terribly secure, that.
Hope any of this proves to be helpful!
🙂
— Christy
Signed up for the real mail service , has never really worked correctly. Now i dont received notifications at all. Can someone tell me why the stopped?
Phillip – my PO Box alerts worked great until December 31, then they suddenly stopped. I assume something re-set on the USPS end at year end, but haven’t gotten a direct answer.
Am about to email POBinquiry@usps.gov, fingers crossed.
I stopped receiving post office box “real mail” notifications after New Year’s. I was told by someone on the internet USPS customer service desk that this service had been discontinued. Yet, locally my postal station has no knowledge of what’s going on. I have reached out to my city’s USPS customer service only to be referred back to my local post office station’s manager for resolution. Repeated suggestions are that I log into my USPS account and turn on “informed delivery”. Unfortunately, that only sends notifications for residential or home mail delivery. For me, residential or home mail delivery is “junk” mail. I’m still inquiring but I fear the worst….that “Real Mail” has indeed been discontinued for post office box holders. One of the postal clerks at my local post office station said she heard that the USPS was thinking about charging a fee for the service. Errrr!!
There is a new service they offer that emails you a JPG of each incoming envelope as it goes through the sorting process before being delivered. At least this service is available in San Francisco. Probably not available everywhere. It’s not just for PO boxes.
I found the answer about a month ago. As of the first of the year the Real Mail notification service for post office box holders was discontinued and migrated to their Informed Delivery service which handles email notification for home USPS mail delivery. If you want email notification for “both” home and post office box mail delivery you have to create “separate” online USPS accounts for (1) your street address and (2) your post office box. Then go thru the steps to turn on Informed Delivery in each account. The service becomes functional 24-48 hours after performing these tasks. I am now receiving separate email notifications for residential and post office box mail delivery. Problem resolved.
When will the real mail notifications resume.
Thank you
Henry King
P.o. box 1174
Spring hill tn.37174
615 596 0637
Is Real Mail Notification still alive or have they switched to Informed Delivery?