---

Kokua Line

By June Watanabe

Minus postage and
address a card turns
into dead mail

---

Question: Recently, my son in Wisconsin had an unusual experience with delivery of his mail from Hawaii. His aunty from Hawaii mailed a birthday card for his 3-year-old daughter about a week before her birthday in February. He received gifts from two other aunts from here, but not from the one who said she mailed a monetary gift with the card. When I talked to my son on Easter Sunday, he said he finally received the card and was told it had been in the dead file as "undeliverable." The $20 cash was gone, but in its place, he received a money order for $19.10, plus postage due of 34 cents. The mailing address was correct, but apparently the return address and postage were missing. What could have happened? Isn't it illegal for postal staff to open the card and take the cash and charge 90 cents for the money order? In the past, if the mailing address was correct but postage was missing, the carrier collected postage due from the receiver if there was no return address, or returned it to the sender if the return address was given.

Answer: This is a good example of why you have to be careful to include both postage and a return address on something you're mailing, and why it is not a good idea ever to send cash through the mail.

In this case, "everything that was done was followed to the 'T,' " said U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Felice Broglio.

"According to our regulations, (the card) is not a piece of mail because it bears no postage." she said. "If there is no return address or postage, it is considered dead mail and it is forwarded to a mail recovery center."

Staff there is then authorized to open the letter to determine if there is anything of value inside and, if there is, they will then try to return it to the sender.

In this case, because there was cash involved, postal procedures required the recovery center to make out a money order instead of just sending on the cash -- minus the fee for the money order -- then send it to the one address available, which is to the addressee, Broglio said.

Your son was dinged for the postage due because there was no one else the postal service could charge for the 34 cents. If your son's aunt had included a return address, the card would have been returned to her, "postage due," Broglio said.

"Without postage, (a letter) is not considered mail," Broglio emphasized. "We get a lot of things in our collection boxes that are not mail and that are not intended to be mail ... What constitutes mail is something bearing postage."

The current regulations regarding missing postage were put into place about five years ago, she said.

While letters without postage are returned to the sender, if a return address is available, if the wrong amount was affixed, it would have been forwarded to the addressee, postage due, "because we consider that showing intent," Broglio further explained.

She also noted that for letters and parcels that end up at the mail recovery center, "if there is no nominal value, dead mail is destroyed." Likewise, if there had been no cash in your son's card from his aunt, the card would have been destroyed, she said.

Broglio said regulations, by necessity, have to be built around "huge volumes," rather than a situation like your son's.

"What the postal service was experiencing was people were being charged on the receiving end for things that they did not want or did not solicit," because the sender did not include postage or a return address, she said. "There is more of that (going on) then (your son's) experience."

Mahalo

To three angels who made what started out as a bad day turn into one that reaffirmed my faith in the goodness of people. Monday, April 8, started off unexpectedly with van problems, which required a complete front brake overhaul. Then, my wife went shopping, losing glasses purchased during a special outer island trip. By the time she got home, there was a message on our answering machine saying she had forgotten it at the bank.

Mahalo to Shirley at the Bank of America. Because the van repairs would take all day, I told my wife to take our truck to pick up her van, then leave the truck in the parking lot at Goodyear Kaneohe. I had to pick up our children from school in town and wouldn't be home until after 7:30 p.m. From Goodyear, my son drove our car home, while I took the truck. But after I got home, I realized my wallet was missing. I frantically looked everywhere, retracing my trips to Goodyear, to school and to 7-Eleven in town. No luck.

On my way home, I reflected on all the tragedy that had happened in the world since Sept. 11. I thought, maybe there are good Samaritans in Hawaii who, seeing my business card and my Blood Bank Super Donor card, would call and say they found my wallet. A few minutes later, my son called my cell phone to say two teenagers, a male and female, had come to our home to return my wallet. My wife offered them a reward, but they refused. They told her they saw the wallet drop out of my pocket while I was getting into my truck and couldn't catch up to me. They left before I could personally thank them.

In Hawaii, we definitely still have the warm aloha spirit. I really believe Hawaii will be in good hands with people like Shirley and especially, those two young people, who will always hold a special place in my heart. -- Mike from Haiku Village

---

Got a question or complaint?
Call 529-4773, fax 529-4750, or write to Kokua Line,
Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210,
Honolulu 96813. As many as possible will be answered.
E-mail to kokualine@starbulletin.com