Return To Sender? Letters Deficient In Postage May Come Back Posthaste

WASHINGTON - Tired of trying to track people down for a few cents here and a few cents there, the post office is considering doing away with "postage due" mail.

The post office wants to treat underpaid mail the same as mail with no postage at all, returning it to the sender posthaste.

The Postal Service says delivering mail postage due has been made impractical by America's changing society, with more two-income families and apartment and townhouse living making it harder to track down receivers to pay the postage due.

If finalized this summer, the change would end a tradition as old as the post office. In colonial times all postage was collected from the recipient of mail. Only in the mid-1800s did mailers start pre-paying for delivery, using stamps as a receipt.

Under current rules, mail with no postage is sent back while items with stamps - but not enough - are marked postage due and sent to the intended recipient. The letter carrier then tries to collect the shortage.

Under the new plan, if an understamped letter gets into the mail and is canceled, the original stamp is no longer valid. The mailer has to pay full postage to send it again.

If underpaid items have no return address - or the return address is the same as the destination address - they will be sent to a center where postal workers try to determine who really mailed a letter, opening it if necessary.

The proposal to change the treatment of underpaid mail is open to public comment until May 20, after which a final decision will be made.

Interested persons can send comments to Manager, Revenue Assurance, USPS Headquarters, 475 L'Enfant Plaza SW, Washington, D.C. 20260-5237.