Regarding Postal Law (USA)?

Question

The other day I wanted to send a card to a friend who had surgery. I addressed the card, only to realize I had no stamp. Oh, well, It's a local address, so I popped it in her mailbox.

I later was told this is a federal offense, considered mail tampering. Surely this can't be the case! Any insights?

Answer 1

Yup, it is a federal offense to place anything in a postal mailbox. Shoulda just stopped by to see her while you were there anyway..

Answer 2

tampering with the mail? maybe the stamp fell off? or you forgot. people are human and do forget. its called postage due and its not tampering with the mail.  

Answer 3

Insufficient postage is not a crime. It will either come back to you if there is a return address or it will come to the person as postage due. In order for it to be a crime, they would have to prove that it was intentionally done to defraud the government and all you have to say is that it was an accident. You mailed a whole bunch of letters and forgot to put postage on one.  

Answer 4

I don't believe this is a federal offense...if you had put the return address as your friends address and dropped in the mailbox, that would have been mail fraud.  since the friend's mailbox is their property I don't think there was any issue.

EDIT: Turns out according to the letter of the law, i was wrong...it is illegal to place anything in a mailbox without proper postage.  code states: DMM 508 section 3.1.3 says a mailbox "may be used only for matter bearing postage."

that being said, I think this is a commonly ignored rule unless there is either habitual abuses or to add on to some other charges.