Postal Service Eases Up on Rental Mailbox Rules

Slowly and quietly, the U.S. Postal Service is retreating from the most controversial rules that it approved last April for commercial mailboxes.

The changes were designed to prevent mail fraud, but hundreds of box renters and rental stores complained that the new regulations imposed undue expenses on honest small-business operators.

By late last June, renters were required to file new forms showing their home address if they used the box as a business address, a provision that set off privacy alarms. By law, anyone--from abusive spouses to would-be burglars--could request the information on the forms from the local post office.

Now the Postal Service has proposed an additional rule that would allow the release of information on those forms only to law enforcement officers. Postal Service officials expect the rule to become final by year’s end.

The Postal Service also has postponed enforcement of a provision requiring that all mail received by box renters have the initials PMB--for private mailbox--included in the address, an addition designed to prevent unscrupulous operators from passing off mail drops as office suites or residences.

The Postal Service backed off after hundreds of box renters protested that the address change would cost them a fortune in lost sales and new stationery. There also was no way, they said, to inform all potential correspondents of the new requirements.

In January, the Postal Service will float a compromise--a modified proposal that would allow renters to preface their box numbers with either PMB or the pound sign. Since such addresses still may not reveal whether an address is a mail drop, the Postal Service also would set up an 800 number that consumers could call to check.

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Robin Fields covers consumer issues for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-7810 or at [email protected].