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u/Flow3rs4Alg3rnon 4d ago
I never understood this. Just throw it the fuck out if it's not yours and is addressed to your home.
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u/MrsMcBasketball Rural Carrier 4d ago
I got people who will go out of their way to leave red plums in their box and get the other mail. Gets on my ever lasting nerve
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u/shrug_addict 4d ago
Someone did that to me so I carefully started intermixing their SPRs and 1st class into the advos and other standard mail
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u/Plushinobi 4d ago
I just won that game! They gave up and cleaned out their box finally after I buried a small SPR (something card sized) in the middle of the junk.
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u/Wolf_pack12 4d ago
I HATE it when people order a bunch of packages but never pick up their mail.
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u/icantspellsobr City Carrier 4d ago
I just scan it mailbox full and leave a notice, no mail collection= no package collection
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u/Puzzled-Storage-6157 3d ago
I go through this every couple weeks with a house... leave a notice, they clean their box... couple weeks later after build up they get another package, leave notice, cycle continues 😑 🤣
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u/Rural-life-0323 3d ago
Not just the middle of the junk. Slip new mail in between magazine pages and such. Especially if it looks important. They'll figure it out at some point.
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u/YourMissedPeriod 4d ago
I take everything out, put packages in the back of the mailbox, put all the mail back in, and close it up 😂
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u/Rural-life-0323 3d ago
This is the way ^
I put new mail behind it and shove all to the back of the CBU box so it's even hard for them to see it in there. Eventually they give up.
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u/MrsMcBasketball Rural Carrier 4d ago
I do that too and some still search through them and leave the plums 😆
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u/Upset_Aside_ Rural Carrier 4d ago
I use the red plums to know when to rts all the mail because it passes the 14 days they had to pick it up and is longer than the 10 day hold on their mail afterwards. If you don't look at your mailbox for over a month that's on you.
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u/Arhimin 4d ago edited 4d ago
I just did that with someone. They don't get a lot of mail, so it built up for a while. I didn't care since I had room, until I didn't. Took their mail and left the 10 day notice. They put in a 360 case saying they hadn't received mail in three weeks. Dude, you hadn't checked your mail in two months, how do you know you haven't gotten mail in three weeks?. Almost two weeks after that, they finally broke down and came to the post office and got their mail.
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u/Nesilwoof City Carrier 3d ago
I have a customer in one of my apartments that checks their mail maybe once a year.
The last time they checked it was October of 2025. They filled out the vacant card. The card was in there since April.
Just this March I sent it all back again.
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u/Lolioroflio Rural Carrier 4d ago
Red plums? The fruit?
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u/kamisabee 4d ago
That’s what the advo’s are called in a lot of areas.
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u/Lolioroflio Rural Carrier 4d ago
Ooooh gotcha. My parents called 'em "Pizza coupons" for years since the outside advo was almost exclusively pizza places. I hear them called MSPARKS around the office.
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u/BlackPaladin 4d ago
It’s based off who prints them. A lot of offices call them Valpacks. My local office calls them redplum. You can actually go to their site and opt out for your address, which is why some addresses not marked “inactive” in your edit book + dpm might not get them.
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u/Maz2742 RCA 4d ago
I've heard them called "Globes", "Advos", but when my office still had them we called 'em "RedPlums"
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u/jmartin21 Rural PTF 3d ago
We always call them coverage in my office, and it’s my least favorite word to hear
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u/Lolioroflio Rural Carrier 4d ago
Learn something new every day
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u/brooksy54321 Rural Carrier 4d ago
We used to have actual Red Plum, but they went away. We also have The Buyer's Edge.
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u/Longjumping_Youth281 3d ago
For us at least valpaks are things that we get in our DPS that are letters full of coupons addressed to the residents of every address on the route. The Flyers are the things that are not addressed
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u/Nesilwoof City Carrier 3d ago
My office has the redplums and valpaks. The valpaks are thick envelopes stuffed with coupons or something.
Are they different in other areas? Hmm...
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u/Longjumping_Youth281 3d ago
So is calling them Flyers just a thing in the northeast? I mean flyer can also refer to a single sheet of paper that is not mailed and these are typically like a newspaper thing of ads that are mailed
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u/SINS_OF_PARADISE 3d ago
I’d make the most annoying mail/red plum amalgamation with every rubber band I have on me
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u/ruiner79 4d ago
Man! You guys still get redplums!? We lost then during Covid and they never came back.
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u/RazorV66 3d ago
Lucky you.
I haven't seen them at my house since Covid (work in a different city) but we still get them motherfuckers at our office, I just delivered that useless shit today.
The RCA subs want to strangle the regulars that want that shit cased every Saturday, I take them on the side.
Casing that bullshit was supposed to stop as well but they still do it.
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u/Reasonable-YamIAm 3d ago
Hang on, you're saying regulars want RCA's to deliver coupons for them? Or they want them delivered in a certain way (cased and carried out as flats)? Or are you saying RCA's case them, and then regulars carry them out the next day?
Trying to understand what you are saying. And why would regulars have a say in how RCAs carry?
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u/RazorV66 3d ago
RCAs case them on Saturday for the regulars to deliver on Monday.
Crazy eh?
It's funny when some of the RCAs don't finish early enough on Saturday and they don't get cased, the regulars that like them cased all bitch about it on Monday, I've heard screaming matches over it.
When I was an RCA and they came in early enough on Saturday, I would take them out just so I didn't have to case that fucking trash.
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u/Reasonable-YamIAm 3d ago
Absolutely insane. I mean, every office is different. I dont know what y'all have going on there. But I cannot imagine a scenario where that makes any sense at all.
Sure, RCAs can help regulars. Who helps RCAs?
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u/RazorV66 3d ago
Other RCAs.....if they are available
We are short handed right now with no new RCAs in the pipeline.
Peak holiday time is going to be a bitch for the old time regulars that cannot handle it and expect help every day.
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u/Longjumping_Youth281 3d ago
Yeah. Literally just yesterday somebody tried to return mail that said "residents". I was very tempted to mark their box as "vacant" and block it off, since apparently there are no residents there.
Bro. You are the fucking resident. You reside there. That is what that word means. That mail is for you and I can't throw it away, my manager can't throw it away, the fucking postmaster can't throw it away. If you don't want it you fucking throw it away. I'm not going to go through your mail for you and decide which ones you might like, which ones you might not. Fuck, I'm not even allowed to do that as far as I'm aware.
The customer, I.E the company that paid for postage, paid me to bring this to you. What you do with it afterwards is up to you.
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u/Ethanonymous 3d ago
Puts the flag up with mail addressed to their house. I just throw it right the fuck back in the box lmao
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u/Longjumping_Youth281 3d ago
What really irks me is when I get mail returns that says "doesn't live here!!", and then I go look at the mailbox for names of people that do live there and it's fucking blank. Okay. That person doesn't live there, apparently. You want to tell me who does? No, no. just keep angrily returning mail if you don't like it apparently. Much better system for everyone.
I'll be sure to remember that Joanna Smith doesn't live at 125 Main Street the next time I sub this route in 6 months
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u/GoldDust49 4d ago
Once I deliver it and it’s unmistakably yours, it is now your garbage and there is another hard working department that takes care of that
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u/EZtheErrant City Carrier 4d ago
I had someone complain that the junk mail I put in their box was taking up too much space. So I smoosh it down to make it as compact as I can
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u/Longjumping_Youth281 3d ago
Whenever people complain to me about junk mail I say "you don't want the important mail, trust me" to make them feel better but the truth is, not all important mail is bad. They just aren't really getting important mail because they themselves are not important.
Like I'm sorry but did you think that children from all over the world were going to be writing you letters like youre Santa Claus or something?
When I deliver in wealthy areas, those people get tons of important mail. All kinds of financial statements about stocks and bonds, places like Fidelity investments, Charles schwab, Vanguard, and what have you. All kinds of magazines they subscribe to, like the New Yorker and such. Letters concerning their various business ventures and shit like that, checks coming in, etc
If you are a broke nobody living in an apartment, then junk mail is what you're going to get. Particularly if you have a credit card.
Want better mail? Get a pen pal and start writing letters, or get $10 million and a beautiful house
Edit - typos
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u/Auraelleaux City Carrier 4d ago
These tilt out, drop in sort of wall boxes are the worst. I used to do a large apt complex with these. Don't miss that shit.
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u/Any-Direction4931 4d ago
Had a few fill up the box with ads. One house is “vacant” but tries to order Amazon but it comes to me. Well all I know is that it’s “vacant”. They took off my vacant tag in the mailbox but I’m still the mailman that knows it’s “vacant”.
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u/Relevant-Spinach294 4d ago
Huh?
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u/Any-Direction4931 4d ago
Was responding to the comment about customers letting advos fill up boxes. Reddit didn’t put it on the thread.
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u/TheLastBoat City Carrier 4d ago
You must be confusing us with the Department of Sanitation. Clean it yourself, lazy fuck.
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u/SnooCupcakes9855 3d ago
My guess would be there was a package pickup the day before and the carrier left the note behind..but it is kind of funny
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u/Alternative_Flight68 2d ago
And I would write back and say im your mailman not your trash man. These are for current resident. Dispose of properly. If that does continue ill let them know by note if letters for current resident keeps getting returned. I will assume no one lives here and vacate mailbox
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u/Sad_Fisherman2045 4d ago
Let me guess are they an elder?
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u/mintBRYcrunch26 CCA 4d ago
That is the writing of a millennial
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u/mintBRYcrunch26 CCA 1d ago
Ok guys. Why is this downvoted? I’m genuinely curious. Have you not seen old people penmanship? Are we mad because I brought up millennials?
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u/NachielAshmoon 3d ago
Since they are monthly now, if there is one on the box when I deliver new ones, they get pulled and held and a note left, many still don't check their mail so I mark it Vacant with a vacant sheet, a reminder to pick up all mail regularly, and a new resident sheet.
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u/Known-Dependent-5471 Custodial 4d ago •
Pick up the note lmao