HENRICO COUNTY, Va. — A Henrico neighborhood is looking for answers after a trail of discarded mail was found scattered along Brittles Lane and Farrand Street Monday morning. The U.S. Postal Service says the mail was undeliverable marketing material, but an eyewitness believes there may be more to the story.
A Henrico resident and grandmother told CBS 6 she spent an hour picking up the mail from the street.
Watch: Grandmother collects trail of discarded mail including checks, cards, and car decals
“Wow, that could be my mail,” she recalled. “In my head, I’m thinking that could be something I’m looking for.”
Viewers on social media expressed similar concerns, questioning the USPS’s explanation and process for handling undeliverable mail.
USPS says the mail came from a third-party contractor and was labeled as undeliverable marketing content. However, CBS 6 has reached out to the postal service multiple times since Monday seeking clarification on what qualifies as marketing mail, how such materials are disposed of, and how personal information is protected in these situations. As of Wednesday, USPS has not responded.
To better understand the USPS’s procedures, CBS 6 turned to Jeff Smith, a professor of supply chain management at Virginia Commonwealth University.
“That should never happen,” Smith said after reviewing footage and details of the incident. “That’s not their process in any form.”
Smith explained that undeliverable mail typically goes through four steps: delivery, return to sender, forwarding, or escalation to a recovery center if it’s unprocessable.
“It’s supposed to be reprocessed back at recovery centers,” Smith said. “Those centers then make a determination — it could be destroyed, sold, re-delivered, or returned to sender. And if nothing else happens, it ultimately is discarded or burned in some capacity.”
He believes some form of process failure likely occurred.
“It makes me wonder — is that something where someone’s inexperience led to an accident, maybe a bag fell off a truck and burst open?” Smith said. “Or is it something malicious?”
Regardless of the cause, he stressed that mail, even if deemed “marketing material,” can still contain sensitive personal information.
“It still has people’s information. I’m not going to say value — but there is value in someone’s address, linked to their name,” he said.
CBS 6 will continue to press USPS for answers about how this incident happened — and what changes, if any, will be made to prevent it from happening again.
CBS 6 is committed to sharing community voices on this important topic. Email your thoughts to the CBS 6 Newsroom.
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