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Mail Trouble

May 4th, 2006 by Bart Everson

I just talked to a Post Office employee who confirmed what I had heard from a neighbor: There’s a glitch in the system. After Katrina, I had my mail forwarded because I was evacuated, but then I returned home in November, cancelled the forwarding order in January, and began receiving mail at home. Service was fairly reliable — until last week, when it stopped abruptly and without notice. Apparently my forwarding order has been reactivated. Apparently my mail is going up to Indiana again. To correct this, I was instructed to fill out another “change of address” form, just like I did in January, specifying my old address as my new address and writing “CANCEL” in big letters in the middle of the form. It could happen to you tomorrow! Even if your mail is still coming to your home, I recommend filling out this form as a proactive measure, to avoid the aggravation of having your mail forwarded back to Houston or Omaha or wherever. Have a postal employee help you fill out the form so you are sure you’ve done it right.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 4th, 2006 at 4:30 pm and is filed under Rebuilding Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Mail Trouble”

  1. Michael Homan Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 7:02 am

    We had the same problem, and for three weeks have had our mail sent to Nebraska. We also filled out our second change of address form, and just yesterday we received mail for the first time in a long time. We filled out the change of address form online at the USPS website. They charged us $1.

  2. Bart Everson Says:
    May 5th, 2006 at 7:29 am

    Thanks for the link, Michael. I found the following information on the USPS website:

    How do I Cancel a Change of Address (COA) request?

    To cancel a Change of Address Forwarding request you must complete a new PS Form 3575 with the following information:

    1. Print your name, dates and the Change of Address (COA) type (i.e. Family / Individual / Business) as on the original COA card.
    2. Complete the old address fields as on the original address COA card.
    3. Write “Cancel Forward” in the new address field.
    4. Turn the card over and print the City, State and ZIP Code of your old Post Office?¢‚Äû¬¢ and mail.
    5. Send the form to the Post Office of the old address.
    * Allow at least five (5) postal business days for the cancel request to take effect.
    * After the cancel request has been completed, the systems will be updated so that your COA Request will no longer show up in the database.
    6. Send a Change of Address card to the Post Office of the new address (forwarding mail back to the old address).
    * This helps re-route any mail that has already been forwarded by the Post Office before the CANCEL was registered.
    * It also helps re-route mail which senders had started sending to the new address.

    Notes:

    * Internet Change of Address (ICOA) requests and Telephone Change of Address (TCOA) requests cannot be canceled online nor can they be canceled via the telephone. You must submit a physical card (as stated above) for this.
    * COA cards may be handed in at any local Post Office (or dropped in a Collection Box?Ç¬Æ receptacle); however, they will need to be addressed to and arrive and be processed at the appropriate Post Office (whether of the old or the new address) before the change takes place.

    But the postal employee I spoke with yesterday gave me PS Form 3546. I couldn’t figure out how to fill out the online form. Why does this have to be so confusing?

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