Complaints rise over private mailbox rule

Thursday, June 17, 1999 | 11:02 a.m.

Bob Mosier and Ray Accetta are trying to market their Kool Kart form-fitting golf cart covers to a national market from their Las Vegas base.

But the U.S. Postal Service is making it more expensive for the partners to do business.

Beginning in October, they'll have to modify their address to include "PMB" -- for private mail box -- because they use a private mailbox in a Commercial Mail Receiving Agency (CMRA).

That means everything that has a mailing address, from business cards to billing statements, will have to be reprinted to include the PMB designation.

In Las Vegas, there are more than 19,000 private mailboxes in nearly 150 retail outlets.

Legislators are starting to take notice of the types of problems small business people are encountering with the implementation of new rules affecting private mailboxes at CMRAs.

The U.S. Postal Service announced in March it was giving six months from April 26 for the owners of private mail boxes to abide by the new rules.

The rules were established as a means for reducing mail fraud. Postal Service officials said a number of companies were listing the address of the CMRA and the box number as a "suite" or "apartment" -- situation conducive to fraud or that is at least misleading to mail senders.

"Current use of 'APT,' 'STE' and other address designations by CMRA customers is misleading and does not identify the true location of the mail piece delivery," said the revised Postal Service rules.

In Las Vegas, Postal Service spokesman Tim Purcell said there have been very few local complaints about implementation of the new rules.

"About 80 percent of the people are for it and about 20 percent are against it," Purcell said. "It isn't just the Postal Service that is recommending these new rules. Financial institutions and law enforcement agencies drove this to the Federal Register."

Beginning in November, Purcell said, the Postal Service in Las Vegas will no longer deliver mail to CMRAs unless envelopes contain the PMB designation.

To Mosier and Accetta, who receive their mail at Abell's Pack & Mail, 3160 E. Desert Inn Road, the implementation of the rule will cost them a couple hundred dollars. But Mosier thinks there's a principle to be fought for.

"This is another example of how the federal government is being so intrusive in business," Mosier said. "Look at what the original purpose of Social Security was supposed to be. Now, Social Security numbers are being used for identification purposes."

Bill Cooter, who owns Abell's Pack & Mail, said the new PMB rules have cost some CMRAs customers. And, Cooter said the new regulations may affect some unsuspecting business people.

Other anecdotes are coming forward about inconveniences to business people. A Las Vegas CMRA reported a customer who conducted real estate transactions out of his private mail box.

Since he works with county recorders all over the Southwest, his address is on file in several courthouses and he gets tax notices and other information from several sources.

Now, he'll have to change his address to add PMB for every parcel he owns or he won't get his legal documents.

In Santa Monica, Calif., a business with a private mail box sent out a 12,000-piece mailer with its address days before the Postal Service announced its new regulations.

The private mailbox industry has estimated the total cost to be absorbed by small business to make the change is $1 billion.

Charmaine Fennie, who leads the Coalition Against Unfair USPS Competition (CAUUC), a trade association for the industry formed 3 1/2 years ago, said the private mail box matter is the latest in a series of confrontations with the Postal Service.

She believes the Postal Service is being vindictive in its treatment of the private mail box issue because the CAUUC prevailed in a dispute with it on the cost of packaging services.

Fennie noted that although ZIP codes were introduced more than 35 years ago, the Postal Service still makes efforts to deliver mail if an envelope doesn't have one. And, whenever a ZIP code is changed, the Postal Service gives businesses a year to change addresses, not the six months offered in the PMB matter.

Fennie, who also chairs the 2,300-member Associated Mail and Parcel Centers from Napa, Calif., said her association is carefully watching legislation that could change the Postal Service rule or at least lengthen the time of the enforcement provision.

Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, has taken ownership of opposition to the Postal Service regulations as a privacy issue.

In a weekly column he wrote headlined, "More is loony at the post office than just cartoon stamps," Paul said he suspects the Postal Service is developing lists of private mail box holders to it can market them with information on buying a U.S. Post Office box.

"The post office likes this data base because it will give them a 100-percent, no-error list of people who have opted against using a Postal Service PO Box and related services," Paul said. "Thus, the Postal Service could mail advertisements to these people explaining, perhaps, how their privacy would not be invaded if they used a government box."

Nevada's congressional delegation hasn't taken an active role in the issue.

The office of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has prepared a boilerplate response to letters it gets on the issue. His letter cites the Postal Service's efforts to fight fraud.

"While the Postal Service has determined that these policies will deter scam artists and fraud perpetrators from misrepresenting an address for criminal purposes, I believe that these changes must be implemented carefully, so that law-abiding citizens and businesses are not overly burdened, and that their mail is properly delivered," Reid's letter says.

Reid's office and other members of the Nevada delegation say they have received about a dozen or fewer letters on the issue.