The United States Postal Service (USPS) has made it easier than ever before to track and monitor your mail with its online services.
Creating an account with the USPS is almost effortless, too.
All you have to do is go to www.usps.com, go through the online sign-up process (takes about two minutes from start to finish), and create a free account with this government service.
From there you’ll be able to track your mail, send mail and packages with ease, change your address, have mail held for you, and only about a million other things!
But what happens if your USPS account goes down?
Worse, what happens if your USPS account becomes disabled?
What are you supposed to do then?
For the most folks, having a USPS account disabled is a really stressful time. Finding answers about how to get your account back up and running – or even if that’s possible at all – can be next to impossible, too.
But that’s why we’ve put together this detailed guide.
By the time you’re done with the inside info below you’ll have a much better idea of:
- Why your USPS account was disabled
- What it means to have your account disabled
- How you’ll know for sure that your USPS account was disabled
- And what you need to do to get your USPS account back up and running
… And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
We also cover a non-USPS services that will help you modernize your mailbox significantly, giving you all of the benefits of a USPS account (and then some) without ever having to worry about it becoming disabled again.
Ready to jump right in?
Let’s do this!
USPS Account Disabled – What Does It Mean?
What does it mean to have your USPS account disabled?
Well, for starters, it means that you are simply no longer able to access any of the online resources, any of the online services, or any of the online solutions provided by the folks at the USPS.
The way that using the USPS website works is pretty simple and pretty elegant. The process is definitely much improved from what it was even just a few handful of years ago.
It’s obvious that the government has spent a decent amount of money to significantly upgrade the overall the online infrastructure of the USPS website.
Everything is much easier to log into. Navigation is simple and straightforward. It’s not hard to find the services or the online help you need any longer.
This is what makes a USPS account disabled situation so obvious, though.
You’ll need to log into your USPS account online to begin taking advantage of the services they provide.
If you are unable to log into your account, however – and you are sure that your login credentials are accurate – the odds are pretty good that you are dealing with a USPS account disabled situation.
What does that mean?
Well, to put it bluntly, it means that your USPS account is (at least temporarily) no longer valid on the platform.
The good news is that this situation can almost always be remedied very quickly.
The bad news, though, is that in the meantime you are going to be “locked out” of using any of the USPS services – including many of the USPS services that you might have been hoping to use, or needed to use right away.
Let’s dig a little bit deeper into the why behind many USPS accounts becoming disabled and then how you can get your account back up and running.
Why Was My USPS Account Disabled?
Truth be told, there are (literally) dozens and dozens of reasons your USPS account may have become disabled.
There’s no such thing as a “one-size-fits-all” reason behind this decision being made by the folks at USPS, or (more often) made by the online systems and algorithms that run so much of the USPS system on autopilot.
Below we highlight some of the most common reasons for USPS account disabled situation to come about, though.
Read through these situations below. Think about how they might apply to your specific situation. And don’t be shy about contacting USPS customer service directly for more clarification about why your account would have become disabled in the first place.
Let’s get into it.
Too Many Incorrect Login in Attempts
One of the most common reasons a USPS account disabled situation bubbles up is because there were too many incorrect login attempts for your account credentials.
Like every other online services out there, the USPS takes your account security and safety very seriously.
In fact, being a government organization, the odds are pretty good that the USPS takes your account security and safety even more seriously than anybody else!
This is why you have to be so careful when you submit your account credentials.
You need to be sure that your username is correct, from the spelling to the capitalization that you used when you first established your USPS account.
You also need to be sure that your password is perfectly input, too. Even just a single mistake – one character incorrect – can cause a login attempt to fail.
If you end up trying to “brute force” your way into the USPS backend with incorrect username or password details too many times you’ll inevitably be locked out and you’ll have a USPS account disabled situation on your hands.
Most of the time, though, people are warned about a USPS account disabled scenario in advance of it actually happening.
The USPS website does not follow the “three strikes and you’re out rule” that other platforms do. They actually give you up to five times to input the right username and password.
If you fail those five times, though – or if someone tries to hack into your account with five incorrect attempts – you’re probably going to find your account disabled and will need to go through the re-enabling process we highlight below.
This is certainly one of the most common reasons that a USPS account goes down.
Multiple Accounts Created for a Single User or Address
There’s another really common reason behind USPS account disabled situations, and that’s when multiple accounts are created for a single user or a single address in the USPS system.
As a general rule of thumb, the USPS is really only ever going to allow a single account to be made for each mailing address – or at least for each individual living or receiving mail at that specific address.
Whenever multiple accounts are discovered (or created) for a single individual at a single address, the potential for USPS account disabled scenarios to pop up skyrockets significantly.
The USPS is always on the lookout for any kind of mail fraud and certainly doesn’t want unauthorized individuals to have access to or control of how mail is being delivered to anyone else.
The automated systems built into the backend of the USPS platform are on the lookout for these kinds of scenarios all the time.
They want to be sure that their systems and their account holders are protected. Sometimes this results in false positives (particularly if someone with a similar address makes a typo or a misspelling and creates another account for your address, for example) – before the most part the system is really accurate and continues to get better all the time.
Multiple accounts for a single individual at a single address are going to bump into disabling features more often than not.
Prolonged Account Inactivity
The USPS doesn’t disable accounts for inactivity often, but in the event of extreme inactivity – we are talking about years (or longer) of inactivity – an individual may find that their USPS account becomes disabled by the United States Postal Service.
Again, this really doesn’t happen all that often.
There has to be a significant track record of inactivity, to the point where the USPS assumes that an individual simply isn’t receiving mail at a specific address any longer or may not be receiving any mail at all, for that matter.
In these situations, the USPS can (at their discretion) choose to disable an account.
Most of the time, though, when they go down this road they allow for accounts to be reactivated. Accounts are very rarely disabled and deleted completely.
You might be surprised at just how much inactivity an account can have before it is disabled, only to have the ability to bring that account back online with a quick phone call to USPS – even if the plan is to go back to inactive status almost immediately after the account is brought back to life!
Suspicious Behavior
The USPS is a government organization first and foremost.
They are always on the lookout for suspicious behavior. With all of the data that they have available through their online platform – and the millions of accounts that have been created for free on the USPS.com platform – they are able to detect suspicious behavior almost on autopilot now.
A number of automated systems are continuously working in the backend to make sure that accounts being created are legitimate, are secure, and are being used by real individuals.
Any account assumed to have been created using suspicious behavior, or any account conducting suspicious behavior on the USPS platform, may find it disabled for security reasons.
Again, this kind of issue can be cleared up with a simple phone call to the USPS (or through different means highlighted below). But it’s important to remember that the USPS is looking to protect itself, its customers, and mail recipients across the country with these sort of automated systems in place.
Simple Glitch in the USPS Backend Systems
At the end of the day, your account with the USPS could become disabled simply because a “ghost in the machine” – a glitch in the backend.
These kinds of problems do happen from time to time.
The USPS has a pretty solid track record for their online infrastructure. But they aren’t perfect. Anytime you’re talking about digital systems with this much complexity and this many users you’re inevitably going to have some things break along the way.
It’s never a good time to discover a USPS account disabled simply because of a bug or a glitch that has absolutely nothing to do with you, and nothing really to do with the USPS, either. But it’s the reality of using systems like this.
Hopefully you won’t have to worry about that happening to you. But if you do, just know that the USPS is always looking to remedy these issues just as quickly as humanly possible.
How Do I Know If My USPS Account Has Been Disabled?
If your USPS account becomes disabled the chances are good you’re going to discover that straightaway.
The USPS is not shy or subtle about letting people know that an account has been disabled.
In fact, as soon as you attempt to log and you’ll be presented with a pop-up or on-screen directives that let you know that the account in question is no longer active but is instead currently disabled.
You’ll almost always be presented with a range of options to speak to someone about remedying that situation, too – right there on screen.
What Do I Do When My USPS Account is Disabled?
The good news is that getting your account reinstated after it’s been disabled is (generally) a simple and straightforward process.
Most of the time you’ll be able to go through on-screen menus and prompts to actually enable your account automatically, all without having to speak to a USPS customer service or technical support representative.
Sometimes you just have to confirm different details and information. Sometimes you just have to verify your identity or create a new password using the information that you’ve already submitted.
Sometimes, though, it won’t be possible to bring your USPS account back online until you speak to someone from the post office directly.
It might not be a bad idea to pop down to your local post office for help. A faster approach, though, is to call the USPS customer service line at 1-800-275-8777.
You’ll be able to explain your situation and get more details about activating (or reactivating) your account after it’s been disabled from the customer service representative on the phone.
Sometimes they’ll be able to bring your account online right there while you are on the line with them!
Never Worry About USPS Account Disabling Issues Again with US Global Mail
Of course, if you’d like to never again have to worry about your USPS account becoming disabled you’ll want to consider modernizing your whole mailbox with a Virtual Mailbox from US Global Mail.
With more than 20+ years of experience as the premier alternative to USPS mailbox services, US Global Mail has helped thousands of people across the country (and even around the world) enjoy headache and hassle free mailbox experience.
New account holders are immediately provided with a permanent, private mailing address that moves wherever they do – creating a “single address for life” kind of situation that eliminates the need for change of address issues ever again.
On top of that, every single piece of mail and every package received by the Virtual Mailbox service of US Global Mail is digitally scanned and uploaded to your account backend.
You’ll be able to see (real time) what pieces of mail have been delivered, exactly what those pieces of mail are, and then decide exactly what to do with them. You can even have mail and packages forwarded to any address on the planet at up to 80% off of traditional retail prices (with lightning speed), too!
For more information about US Global Mail and everything they have to offer, visit their website today.
