General delivery is an excellent service extended by many great shipping companies like USPS. But what is general delivery, you may think? How does it serve us?
There is always a possibility of not having a proper mailing address for receiving any package. In such circumstances, if you move to a different place or visit someplace every day, it makes receiving the package quite difficult.
For this purpose, you may prefer to use the post office as your address.
The part where the problem arises is that many mailing online companies do not provide the service of shipping to the post office. This is when ‘General Delivery ‘ comes as a savior.
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What is General Delivery?
Although this method of mail delivery is an old one, it still comes in handy if you do not have a permanent or registered address. You will have to visit your nearest post office and collect your mail or packages.
How to use the service of General Delivery for USPS?
Find out which post office is the main one in the city that you live in. Every city has one main post office in each zip code.
You can get your general delivery services at any post office, but you have a better chance of the main post office. If you have trouble finding out which one is the main post office, you can call the USPS helpline number for the post office at 1-800-275-8777.
You can even enquire about the other local post offices in your city, and they would be happy to be of service to you. This will probably save much of your time if you can go to your nearest local post office.
Figure out what sort of delivery you are receiving, and then you can give whichever address you feel like depending on that. You may give the direct address of the post office or even the street address of the post office.
How to address a mailpiece sent to the general delivery?
Now, this one step is an important one. Below, we will be stating how to address the mailpiece or the package sent to the general delivery.
Format –
- Your Name.
- General Delivery
- [state the address of the post office]
- Town or Street No.
After looking at your identification documents, the post office staff will provide you with your package. Sometimes they don’t even need identification proof if you are a regular visitor to that place.
What are the possible restrictions on using the USPS general delivery services?
Using this delivery service has quite some limitations, which we will be stating down below! The service is available at only a single facility under the administration of any Post Office with multiple facilities.
Hence, the postmaster of that place may authorize only one or more facilities to allow or offer the general delivery facility that will suit the customers or their needs.
A customer will have to use only one such location. The restrictions that the postmasters can impose on a customer on the use of general delivery service are as follows :
● If the customer has a mail or package that cannot be reasonably allowed to be accommodated due to excessive volume or size.
● If the customer cannot provide suitable identification proof, the postmaster of the post office has the right to restrict USPS’s general delivery service.
Both of the restrictions were quite fair considering the own functions and regulations of the post office.
Some other additional information you should have on the general delivery service.
These points down below will come in handy if you are using the USPS delivery service.
● You do not have to have any application for the service of general delivery. You only need to talk to the postmaster of your local post office.
● As additional information, general delivery services do not deliver on any holidays or Sundays.
● No one else other than the postmaster can put any limitations on your use of the general delivery service, which is why you should speak with the postmaster first.
● Keep in mind that every delivery is held at the post office for about 30 days and not more than that.
If the mail has no specific address on it, then the amount of time required is as follows
1. If the package comes with letter carrier service, approximately 10 days is the time.
2. If the package comes without a letter carrier service, approximately 15 days is when the package will be held on.
To sum up our discussion on USPS general delivery service, we hope this article proved helpful to you in delivering all the necessary details required on the subject.
We went all around in our discussion, from the general delivery service to how to avail of it. We mentioned the format to help you out in case you wish to use the service.
We even touched on topics like the possible number of restrictions on general delivery and extra information that may help you out while you engage in this service.
We hope we can help you with this article and provide you with all the information you need.
