Address won't certify FAQ

SUPPORT

Why won't my address certify? What can I do about it?

When you do a Dial-A-ZIP in Envelope Manager or DAZzle, the program compares the submitted address to the U.S. Postal Service’s national database of domestic addresses. It checks the address only, not the addressee. It cannot tell if your addressee has filed a Change of Address form lately--check FASTforward^SM for that. For CASS certification, your address needs either a precise match or a default match. Multiple responses are not good enough. There are many reasons for an address not to get a precise or default match. Here are some examples:

Last line incorrect: The last line of the address should have the city, state and ZIP Code or just the ZIP Code or the city and state. If you have a country name on the last line, even if that country name is USA, you will not get a match. If you need to put an “attention” line in your address, put it at the top.

Beginning with the wrong city, state, and ZIP Code: If the ZIP Code already on the address doesn’t match the city and state, or if the ZIP+4 is wrong, you won’t get a good match.

Misspelled items.

Omitted directions: Some addresses are not complete without a direction. In our city, for example, there is both an East Meadow Drive and a West Meadow Drive. So an address like “467 Meadow Dr” will get multiple responses.

Incomplete street names: Don’t omit words like street, drive, road, circle, place, etc. There might be both a Maple Street and a Maple Circle in the same city, for example.

Foreign addresses: Only United States addresses can be CASS-certified.

Omitted house, apartment, or suite numbers: In many cases you’ll get multiple responses if you leave out the suite or apartment number. Omitted house numbers are even worse.

Data entry shortcuts: Abbreviated cities don’t work. "NY, NY" is not a valid city and state. Neither is "KS City, MO." It’s better to type just the 5 digit ZIP Code than to abbreviate the city name.

College and university addresses: College and university addresses are often very difficult to match. Schools sometimes have their own internal mail systems.

Highway addresses: There often are many different names for the same stretch of road.

For additional clues about why your address doesn't certify, you may want to see our list of return codes.

What can you do if your address doesn't certify?

You might choose not to ignore not-certified addresses, or to send the mail at full-price single-piece rates. But if you want to try fixing those addresses so they qualify for discount rates, here are some optional techniques:

Technique 1: Look up the Address Individually

Go to the Filters menu and set a Not CASS-Certified filter.

Double-click on each address to edit it. You might see the problem immediately, especially if something has been misspelled. If you think you can correct the problem, do so.

From the Edit Address screen, click on the +4 button. This method checks that one address only.

If you look up ZIP Codes over the Internet or the USPS AMS CD-ROM, you can View the Multiple Responses that appear for addresses that don’t have enough information. Choose the correct address and click on OK.

Technique 2: Deliberately Get Multiple Responses.

If Technique 1 doesn’t work and you are using the Internet or USPS AMS CD-ROM, jot down the original address on a piece of paper. Then remove a small portion of the address, such as the house number, the city and state, the ZIP Code, or the word "street," for example.
From the Edit Address screen, click on the +4 button.
Look at the Multiple Responses. You may find out that the U.S. Postal Service doesn’t list that street above a certain number, or that the address is probably on Maple Dr. not Maple Rd., for example. This method also helps if the ZIP Code you had previously didn’t match the city and state.
Use what you learned to edit the address again. If necessary, restore the address portion you removed and then remove a different portion. Then click on the +4 button again.

Technique 3: Surrender
In many cases it makes more sense to pay the full-price, single-piece First-Class Mail rate on a small number of pieces than to spend a long time trying to certify a few problem addresses. Once you have filtered your database for the not-CASS-certified addresses, use File|Print|Many Addresses to print them out separately.

Technique 4: Get Help from the U.S. Postal Service
The U.S. Postal Service compiles the database against which your addresses are being checked. They have offices to handle corrections to it. If you expect to send mail to these addresses over and over, or if you have a number of related addresses that all fail certification, it might be worth your time to investigate further.

Go to http://www.usps.gov/ncsc
Use the ZIP+4 Code Lookup feature to see if they can resolve your problem address.
If it still doesn’t get a ZIP+4 Code, click on the Address Management Systems Office Locator. Use it to find out where to inquire about your particular problem address.
Call or write that Address Management Systems office.