Current law about "Private Mail Boxes"?

Does anyone know about the current state of the law regarding "Private Mail Boxes." I had heard that the laws were not going to be implemented because they were quashed by "business-friendly" [i.e., fraud-friendly] Bush. Is that the case? I hope the following paragraph, found online, is still true:

"Effective August 26, 2001, all mail delivered to a Commercial Mail Receiving Agency, such as Mailboxes, Etc., must have the box number designated as either “PMB” (Private Mail Box) or with the pound sign (#). Effective this date, the post office will not deliver mail marked “Suite”, “Apt.” or “Unit” number when in fact the mail is going to a private box."

(I found this paragraph at http://www.crimetime.com/postalsample.htm. Crimetime.com is one of the better investigation sites that I have ever seen, with lots of links to state corporation indexes, etc., etc.)

If the law IS implemented, how will that affect the schemes of people like Maxine Asher of American World University, who are mostly serviced by secretarial-service mail-drops? Do those count as Commercial Mail Receiving Agencies? I think it will be pretty funny if the Postal Service sends back all of the incorrectly addressed mail sent to those addresses. On the other hand, if all people have to use is a "#" in the address, it doesn't seem as if the implications will be very obvious to prospective students. Where I live, at a townhouse condo, we choose to use a "#," and other people with other sorts of addresses do that, so....

 

My understanding is that what was "quashed" was the requirement for using the letters PMB as the only option. Now one can use the number or pound sign as well.

My guess is that this will be enforced about as diligently as the FTC's rule that the word "accreditation" can only be used when referring to recognized accreditation.

During the years I lived in Littleriver, California (population under 400), I got more mail than the rest of the village combined. Good old "Drawer H." But when I wanted to code addresses for mail order ventures, the postmistress said I could use any address I wanted; that everything with my name on it would go into my drawer. And so there were ads (we're talking mid 70s) with "John Bear, Galactic Towers, 114th floor..." and "Kremlin West" and "St. Peters Square" and so on. My favorite was the one time I tried advertising Bears' Guide in comic books. One could buy a tiny ad that would appear in something like 40 million comic books for $500 a word. My ad read in its entirety: "Degrees by mail. Write Bear, 95456." Got lots of inquiries, 90% from the military.

 

Hey! If it wasn't for Classic Comics and DC Comics, I wouldn't know anything about Ivanhoe or Call of the Wild, or just about anything else (like the fact that lead is poisonous to Mon-El).

Rich Douglas, former military person and avid comics consumer.

 

Thanks for the interesting web site. Another item of note, from the main page:

"The United States Postal Service is tightening the noose on release of customer information. Effective June 26, the Post Office stopped releasing true address information of business P.O. boxholders, breaking a long standing policy. The reason given for the change was to protect the privacy of small business owners who operate
out of their homes."

Certainly not unreasonable, with all the home based businesses and wackos out there. Of course, some are one and the same. But I always thought it was ironic that people would get a PO Box for privacy and anyone could walk up and obtain the home address.

Gary

 

No longer giving out the real address of business PO boxholders will make it much harder to track down phony schools. Obviously there are many legitimate businesses that can be run from private homes, but a university is not one of them.