If you mail documents using presort or automation rates, you need to know about the new Move Update rules that went into effect November 23, 2008. These United States Postal Service (USPS) rules stipulate that your lists of addressees must only contain addresses that you updated 95 days or less before mailing. The older regulation required that you update addresses 185 days or less before mailing.
These rules apply to all First Class and Standard Mail that you mail out at the discounted presort or automation rates, unless you use special address formats, such as “John Doe or Current Resident,” “Occupant” or “Postal Customer.” The USPS introduced the new shorter timeline to reduce the amount of undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) mail it handles. According to the USPS, it cost $1.8 billion in Fiscal Year 2004 to handle 9.7 billion pieces of UAA mail. One independent study said that First Class mail accounts for 62.8 percent of all UAA mail. It comes as no surprise then that the USPS is targeting UAA mail as a way to reduce costs and improve service.
An easy way to comply with this new requirement is to have us run your list through the National Change of Address Linkage System (NCOALINK) prior to mailing. You will need to sign a few forms, but we will do our best to fill out the majority of the forms for you in advance in order to make it as painless as possible. NCOALINK is not a free service, but it only amounts to a few dollars per thousand records processed. It's well worth it to keep your list clean, make sure you're reaching your target audience and comply with the Move Update standards.
The USPS already has tools in place to enforce these revised standards. It also plans to assess penalties on mailings that are found not to comply with the new standards. The USPS is still discussing the details as to how these penalties will work. However, it has proposed that it apply a $0.07 per-piece penalty to an entire mailing for Standard Mail or Nonprofit Mail. It would assess full, single-piece rates for non-compliant First-Class Mail.
For additional information on the Move Update standards, contact us or go to Postal Explorer at pe.usps.com and click on Address Quality.
