USPS Identity Verification To Hold Mail

I received this email this morning from the USPS:

"You are receiving this notice because our records indicate you have previously placed your mail on hold with USPS.

To provide you with greater security, USPS is making several changes to the online USPS Hold Mail™ process. These improvements will require additional action from you before you submit your next hold mail request.

What is changing?

Beginning in early October 2019, to place an online hold mail request in the future, you will be required to:

Create or sign in to your USPS.com® account
Verify your identity

Note: There are several identity verification methods available, with some methods taking up to one week to complete, so please plan accordingly.

How can I prepare?

To complete account creation and satisfy the Hold Mail identity verification requirement ahead of these changes, you can sign up for the free USPS Informed Delivery® feature - the only feature that currently offers identity verification. Once you are identity verified, you will not have to complete this step again for your current address and will be able to hold your mail. As an Informed Delivery subscriber, you will also be able to digitally monitor your mail while it is on hold."

Has anyone else received this? It sounds like it's necessary to sign up for Informed Delivery to verify identity, at least at this time. I haven't done so. What are folks' experiences with Informed Delivery - positive, negative? Any downside or risk in doing so?

Thank you.

*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

I absolutely love Informed Delivery. I can track my mail easily and see what is coming that day amongst many other things.

Fly in Ointment: The Informed Delivery login page has been unavailable for four days which seems an excessive outage. But this is the first time that I can remember such an occurrence.

I use Informed Delivery. Every morning you get an email with scans of some of the mail scheduled for delivery. It also tells you if there is additional mail for which scans are not available.
It is handy if you are expecting a tracked piece of mail. You know when it is going to be delivered without having to check USPS.
Dan

My wife really seems to like it. The only drawback from my perspective is that she now always knows whenever I get something stamp-related (e.g., "looks like you're getting some more of your colorful mail today").

I tried to sign up for Informed Delivery back in early 2016 but it was not implemented in my area until late 2016. I like it very much. It saves me a walk to the mailbox when I know there is nothing coming that day, it helps me ID any local 'marker monkey', it makes it easy to report any non-delivery situation (in my area happens a lot more than I thought).

The 'Mail On Hold' process has been problematic well before Informed Delivery or any other electronic services. Even the manual 'go to the PO and get a form' process required no validation. So if someone has an axe to grind, they could simply fill out a Mail Hold form, sign your name, and you would stop getting your mail. It is about time the USPS addressed this oversight.
Don

I heard about this informed delivery previously while reading news about thefts of peoples mail, by postal employees at that. Keep your info, passwords , email and data safe as there are many who would try to benefit from others at any cost.

Bad enough all mail is tracked and know who you are sending mail too, but also receiving from. It can also work the other way to deter criminals, who try using the postal system. I do not know if the Canada Postal system is entertaining the idea of informed delivery, as they keep trying to get people to sign up for electronic delivery of your mail. Imagine them copying the contents of your letters and emailing them to you. They know just about everything else about you, why not your personal life. Hell no! I don't like it. My two cents.

Mike

Well, I went into the USPS website to sign up for Informed Delivery and, per my advancing senility, it turns out that I had already signed up for it some time ago and had forgotten about it. However, I had not changed my address so I was able to all the scanned images of mail addressed to the current occupants of my previous address in Texas. So much for privacy.

Thanks for everyone who responded.

Re: the Informed Delivery. I have been getting this for a few months now and yesterday, for the first time, there was an advertisement embedded in the display. My wife received a subscription renewal letter from Southern Living[i] and under the image of the letter was a click-on ad which went to a [i]Southern Living site at which renewal was available. The Postal Service must be selling ad space on this service. Anyone else seen ads in their Informed Delivery displays?

Don

Hi Don,
https://goscf.com/t/63696
Don

I like informed delivery also. It is nice to be able to see what postcrossing cards I am getting that day and the upcoming packages listing is worth it alone. It makes it really easy to guess when an APS circuit is going to arrive among other things.

I have noticed they leave out magazines and the like a lot though.

Hi Don:

Yup! that's it. Strange, your link is to a post from last year and my yesterday ad was the first I've seen an ad. Maybe I don't get the right kind of junk mail to merit paying for an ad.

Don