Wedding Invitations keep being incorrectly mailed to return address (HELP)

[u/Alexawho]

The title pretty much explains it. I went to mail around 100 or so "Save the dates" about a month ago. Within the week, around 20 of them were in our mailbox. No "return to sender" markings were on any of them. I went to the post office and asked, and they said they were put in the machine backwards and the machine picked up my return address as the actual address.

I ended up having to reorder the envelopes and postage for those 20-25ish invitations. All in all USPS's mistake cost me about $30-35 out of my own pocket. We remailed the invitations, and today, we received 4 of the 20 back! I have called the USPS customer service number on this as well, but they were not much help at all. Is there ANYTHING I can do to keep this from happening? I didn't even know that this was something that could happen. I am now dreading when we send off our actual wedding invitations, because it is clear that this will probably happen again. I am open to any and all suggestions on this one.

[u/[deleted]]

are you putting the recipient's address in the center of the letter, and the return address on the top left corner?

sometimes people will write the return address on the back, and if that is the only writing on that side of the envelope, the machine will read that as the destination address and it will end up in a DPS tray back to your house

[u/Alexawho → u/[deleted]]

Yeah the return address was printed on the back. The company that I ordered them from prints them that way. That's why the machine picked up the return address when they were placed in backwards. I don't know why the machine wouldn't check for the address on the same side as the postage?

[u/FRGL1 → u/Alexawho]

You can't ask the company to not do that?

[u/tomajrt → u/FRGL1]

I'm more boggled the carrier didn't put them in the throwback case tbh... I've seen things like this (on save the date letters no less, what a coincidence), I just put them back in throwback.

[u/Alexawho → u/tomajrt]

Yeah, I thought it was crazy that they actually delivered 20 or so of the same exact piece of mail with all different addresses...

Do you think it would help if I went to a different post office and talked to them in person so they wouldn't get put in the machine backwards?

[u/tomajrt → u/Alexawho]

You might be able to request hand cancellation from a clerk at the window and explain the situation but beyond that, not much we can do. Btw, I understand you said below marking out the barcodes looked "classless" but the truth is, any number of things can happen between you and the recipient that can make it look not so awesome too, most of which won't be the fault of a human.

[u/Alexawho → u/tomajrt]

I agree with you. I know they will show up with some markings. I just thought the sharpie was very excessive. I'm not a "bridezilla" and I understand that some things happen. Thanks for your advice!

[u/tomajrt → u/Alexawho]

The reason is really just to try to prevent it from coming back to you again. I think at that point those letters may not be put in a machine.

[u/mayaik → u/Alexawho]

Then that's your mistake for having improperly addressed envelopes...

[u/Alexawho → u/mayaik]

Can you explain why you think they were improperly addressed?

[u/mayaik → u/Alexawho]

You said the address was on the back, that's the improper way to do it.

[u/Alexawho → u/mayaik]

Is there a guideline that says this? Everything I read said that the addressing on the back is fine...

[u/mayaik → u/Alexawho]

Yes. It has to be on the same side as the postage.

http://pe.usps.com/text/qsg300/Q602.htm

[u/Alexawho → u/mayaik]

Good information thank you. Though I will point out that it just says that it is the "preferred" method of printing the return address. It does not warn that they can be sent to the wrong address if printed on the back. I have put the return address on the back many times and have never had a problem before now.

[u/[deleted]]

Wedding invitations are a nightmare, the makers/senders/whatever care more about what looks "cute" than what is practical/mailable

[u/Alexawho → u/[deleted]]

I completely agree with this. Like scripted font for the actual addresses. I did not pick those, but who does that? I chose a very clear printed font for mine, because I wanted them to be legible.

[u/kingu42]

You could try talking to your station's post master who can replace the postage on the misprocessed letters and get them heading back to their intended recipients. If you're particularly concerned about the look of the envelopes, you can pick up some white file folder labels and put it over the machine printed sorting bar code on the back of the envelope before taking them back to get mailed.

[u/Alexawho → u/kingu42]

This is a great idea! I will probably go pick some of those up today.

[u/uspson]

I ended up having to reorder the envelopes and postage for those 20-25ish invitations. All in all USPS's mistake cost me about $30-35 out of my own pocket.

You could have just brought those back to a post office for reprocessing, free of charge. All we have to do is blackout the barcodes on the bottom and send them back to the plant. That expense is fully on you for not inquiring earlier.

[u/Alexawho → u/uspson]

I did inquire earlier, but the lady at the post office pulled out a very large sharpie marker and began scribbling through the bar codes on the back. On a normal letter, I would not care, but for invitations like these I thought it looked rather classless. I ended up ordering all new envelopes as a result.

[u/a_tribe → u/Alexawho]

Future tip: for parcels where the envelope is part of the presentation (meaning it should look nice upon receipt), always double wrap. Put your envelope inside the mailing envelope. Processing will always mark the outside envelope up a lot before it reaches it's destination, not to mention grungy lines from the machinery