Postal Service Crackdown On Undeliverable Mail Highlights Need for Cleaner Addresses

With 40 million Americans moving each year, Melissa Data recommends 
change-of-address service for all mailing campaigns.

Rancho Santa Margarita, CA— May 22, 2002— Citing that returned mail is costing it more than $1.5 billion per year to process, the United States Postal Service has stepped up its enforcement of a rule that requires businesses to clean up their address databases in order to earn mailing discounts.

To qualify for a First-Class presort discount, businesses must update the “movers” in their lists at least every six months. If businesses are not updating their addresses files and reducing their share of undeliverable mail, they can expect a visit from the Postal Service, which may result in fines for recovery of back postage. The postal audits have begun in the Southeast and will be extended nationwide in 2003, the USPS has confirmed.

“With these new audits underway by the USPS and with another round of postage increases coming on June 30—the third increase in the past 18 months—now is the time to clean up your address files and take advantage of the best mailing discounts,” said Ray Melissa, president of Melissa Data, a provider of data enhancement services.

According to the USPS, more than 40 million individuals, families, and businesses move each year, meaning that up to 20% of the people or companies in a database could have a new address. These changes are big obstacles to maintaining high-quality mailing lists and low production and postage costs.

For its part, Melissa Data offers the National Change of Address (NCOA) service and encourages businesses to use this low-cost process prior to each major mailing. “Use of NCOA is not only one of the requirements for First-Class discounts offered by the USPS, but it also helps businesses stay in touch with valuable customers and prospects as they move,” said Melissa. “This is a proactive way for business mailers to update their address databases and remove the duplicates prior to mailing.”

The NCOA process matches a company’s mailing list against a database of address changes submitted to the USPS. The USPS file contains 115 million records and 48 months of permanent address changes. Since 1986, the NCOA service has saved mailers millions of dollars that otherwise would have been wasted in paper, postage and labor. 

As an example of the savings that NCOA can produce, the Indiana State Republican Party in mid April submitted its voter file to Melissa Data for processing. Of the 3.9 million voter records processed, about 528,000 records were matched to recent movers in the USPS file. 

Melissa also recommends that mailers make use of a change-of-address service prior to standard-class mailings, since undeliverable standard mail is not forwarded by the USPS, but discarded.

About Melissa Data
Celebrating its 20th year in business, Melissa Data, the Data Superstore, helps companies manage and optimize their contact data. Melissa Data provides solutions for address and phone number validation, postal coding, data enhancements and sales leads. Every day more than 70,000 people visit the company’s Web site. A powerful line of software, databases, programming tools, and hygiene services has made Melissa Data a recognized leader in the data quality industry. For more information, or to request trial software, contact Melissa Data at 1-800-800-6245 or visit www.melissadata.com