Silk Road forums

Discussion => Shipping => Topic started by: bluegreen23 on September 26, 2013, 10:04 am

Title: legal crap to do with the post and mail
Post by: bluegreen23 on September 26, 2013, 10:04 am
Is anyone familiar with the law regarding the post?

specifically what requirements are there to courier, mail, and using the post office. Can anyone deliver a package? what requirements are there to knowing your customer if you are a package delivery company ?
any legal requirements to take a persons info for private mailboxes ? Any legal requirements to use a real name for sending and more importantly receiving packages? is it illegal to have many names attached to one address? is it illegal to have fictional names attached to an address for the purpose of privacy (as an obligation by contract) ?
Title: Re: legal crap to do with the post and mail
Post by: SuckDick4Weed on September 26, 2013, 12:32 pm
What country bluegreen? I can answer in regards to Australia. There is the Post Act or whatever in regards to AusPost. Private companies mostly operate on principals of common law.

The Aus Postal Act reserves carrying of all letters to Australia Post, unless a) You are the sender or direct employee of the sender without payment. b) You are carrying the letter to or from a post office on behalf of the sender or receiver. c) A private company may still carry letters but only if they charge four times the value of the standard domestic rate.

Letters are considered all articles under 250g weight and I think a certain size (sorry don't know off top of my head)

Parcels  (articles over 250g) may be carried by any person or privately owned company as they are NOT reserved services and so are not covered by the community service obligation.

You could also get around the 250g letter thing by just charging for 1kg package or something. That's what most courier companies minimum is anyway.

I think all the questions you are asking can be answered simply by looking at the privacy act and how it's used. It actually grants permission for people conducting business to request your information if they feel it is necessary to conduct certain services for you or supply goods to you. It also allows individuals to request to know what information a certain entity holds about them and to request for it's removal or deletion at the 'owners' request.

Let's say for example a mail forwarding company decided to accept receipt of your mail without a name, simply using addressee as "Care of xyz company" This would enable the postal service to positively identify the correct recipient by something other than just an address. This is just so that in case they can't find 123a Some Street, Suburb, they can still deliver to xyz company which is actually at number 132a. For australia post, this is just so the can ensure they can meet the community service obligation and actually deliver the article. For other companies, they have a contractual obligation to deliver the package and so would also want to collect some sort of addressee such as company name or simply First Name, Last Name so that they can ensure delivery for the same reason. In summary, AusPost are required to by law. Private business do it because they want to ensure successful delivery so they get paid.

Really, if you think putting an address only without a name will still get there then you as a sender are taking this risk. This is where a return address comes in handy as it enables the safe return of an article in any case where xxx address couldn't be found or John Smith apparently no longer lived there and occupant refused delivery. If there was no address, it goes to the dead letter centre where they are authorized to open the letter/package to possibly determine the intended recipient. In the case of a private courier, they usually pick up from a business or some other address and so know where they can return it.

You ask about the legal implications of not using a real name or using a fictional one. Well this could be considered a type of fraud because of using a false identity. For the purposes of privacy I'm not sure about the legality but obviously this method is commonly used as I can imagine most people on SilkRoad for example might use an alias of some sort for deliveries.

Some ways you could get around using a name to protect privacy, for example:

> Private mail box. Simply a number instead of a name.
> I've seen some mail forwarding companies use a "Room" or "suite" number to distinguish between clients because can you imagine if they had two John Smith's mail come in anyway?
> Using the "care of" as I mentioned earlier. Other common and rather general addressees "To the Householder"

A business interested in protecting a clients privacy would simply not collect any personal information. This could hardly be called illegal for most business activities (obvious exceptions here are financial services) In regard to mail I don't see anywhere stated in law that personal information MUST be collected. In fact I've already discussed ways in which it is totally legal and in some cases NOT even necessary to use a persons name for mail.

Oh and having two many names at an address. I can't see this as being an issue, particularly for a business. However, you might run into trouble with the local council when there "appears" to be 150 residents in a three-bedroom house.

Having said all this. Courier employees would have to be a very unskilled 'profession' In most cases the minimum is to hold a current drivers license. In the case of working for Australia Post, it is a federal corporation and therefore hold strict requirements such as a full criminal background check and you should not have been CHARGED (even if not convicted) of assault.
Title: Re: legal crap to do with the post and mail
Post by: th3creeper on September 27, 2013, 06:02 am
For USPS..the answers to most of your questiions can be found by studying USPS Forms.  You'll find there are mainly rules and regulatins rather than laws pertaining to mail handeling.  There are official forms they require be filled out for potential carriers/delivery services/mailbox renting, etc. 

Here's an example I just posted under a different thread...PS Form 1583-A PDF ›
Application to Act as a Commercial Mail Receiving Agency
Title: Re: legal crap to do with the post and mail
Post by: bluegreen23 on September 28, 2013, 03:30 am
For me the country would have to be the US, canada, or if need be mexico. Though i think mexico could cause more problems than solutions.

I'll look more into the USPS forms. Assuming I can just google the hell out of those and just try to drink enough redbull to get through them.  :)

SD4W, I like that, operating on principals of common law. That phrase makes me wonder. At any rate so I may have to look into what is required for a courier service in terms of the USPS or equivalent in what is charged. I don't think there is any charge. fedex doesn't seem to be more expensive. At least not significantly.

I'm more thinking the opposite, I don't want to know what info a company would have on me. I want to know how little info I could collect and still be considered legally doing my part.  For example (just a comparison) in the US we need to gather tons of info for bitcoin transactions, but in canada they do so by choice. legally I don't think the exchanges are required to gather any info. I was thinking similarly for mail.  There are many mail forwarding services, and po boxes from private companies, and private couriers. I know that many of them gather information when they take on a client but I was curious if they are legally obligated to.

Personally I was thinking more of a company that didn't use a care of. I was thinking that everyone would have an account. But instead of the account being a number (which can cause problems when things are being shipped as well as clearly identify packages.) I was thinking that accounts could be names.
So someone would have an account. There packages would get delivered to
joe shmoe
123 fake st
fakeville, FA
12345
Joe shmoe is not the name of any person, its used as a account name instead of a number. There is nothing illegal about using:
PO box 123
123 fake st
fakeville, FA
and there is nothing illegal about using
4453-1
123 fake st
fakeville, FA
it just looks heaty as fuck to have a number instead of a name. I know some mail forwarding places have a number after the name. But this too makes it obvious that the package is going somewhere else before arriving at it's final destination. What I'm trying to discern from all this, is can an envelope look like a regular piece of mail, and be fully legit to head to a private company for delivery or pick up.

The examples you give are options but all of them fall short of making a piece of mail look like every other piece of mail. Something more for me to look into.

Thanks for the reply. I think I have a good understanding of where I'm going with this and what I need to look up.