The U.S. Postal Service is expected to decide within the next six weeks whether to require the letters PMB or the number sign (#) in the address block for mail destined for a Commercial Mail Receiving Agency (CMRA).
Direct marketers, mass mailers and mail monitoring companies use CMRA’s to track mail and list security with decoy or “seeds” in their mailings.
The USPS says the requirement will tell the mailing public that the address may not be the actual physical location of the addressee. It also says that requiring the designation in the address block would “discourage fraudulent or deceptive practices that might adversely affect consumers.”
Although private mailbox company owners and operators, several federal agencies and members of Congress oppose either designation, the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom), formerly known as the Advertising Mail Marketing Association, endorsed the use of the pound or number sign as an alternative to the PMB designation.
Direct marketers, according to PostCom president Gene A. Del Polito use CMRA’s “to detect the fraudulent use of rented mailing lists” and to require the letters PMB in the address block “would enable those who choose to violate the terms of their list rental agreements to delete these seeds and avoid detection.”
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