1. United States
2. Mass.
3. Letter

The U.S. Postal Service quietly changed how postmarks work. Mail is no longer automatically postmarked with the date you drop it off. Instead, the postmark now reflects the date it’s first processed by an automated sorting facility — which can be days later. If you mail something right at a deadline, the official postmark could be later than your drop-off date and may be considered late. The mailing date matters , but in order to get the correct date you have to go inside the post office and request a hand-stamped postmark. This is wrong. Make the post office go back to dating mail as it’s received.