> Your phone number is on Amazon shipping label too

Probably for shipments shipped from an Amazon warehouse (sold by Amazon, or Fulfilled-by-Amazon/FBA).

For our own labels, we print our company phone number, and that's fairly common for many ecommerce companies (although certainly not all).

It protects the customer's privacy, and in the event there's an issue with delivery, it's best the carrier contact the shipper (us) anyway.

Whether your phone number appears on the shipping label is variable. Based on the 5 fulfilled-by-Amazon (sometimes sold-by-Amazon) packages in my hand, it appears on all the Amazon-as-trucker packages and neither of the USPS packages. I suspect the rules are even more complex than simply "what carrier", but it clearly varies.

Look again closely at your Usps labels. May seem like random numbers but it's there

If it's not on the label, it's in the system.

Some folks generate their own custom labels, and may omit things like that. The data is still sent to the carrier during the "End of Day" task (or equivalent) in whatever shipping software the shipper uses.

Alright. I can only speak from what I see. Thanks.

It's really not there. (My phone number is in the 617 area code.)

http://static-s3.sokoloff.com/random/amazon/IMG_1880.jpg

On other labels it's after the "DF3..." ID.

That's a custom label (ie. not stock from USPS), and is likely generated by the shipper's shipping software.

Apparently they chose to leave that field off the label, but it's still sent to USPS by the software.

The seller on that particular order was Amazon.com LLC; the box was an Amazon box, closed with Amazon branded tape and mailed USPS.

I have one simple rule: unless we've seen each other naked, or you've paid me money, the only phone number you get when you ask me for my phone number is the number of a pay phone at a gas station in Forks, Washington that was torn down a few years ago to make room for a new highway.

If you give your cell phone number out to random companies on the Internet, then yes, you can expect to get spammed. What in the world makes that seem like a good idea to so many people?

And yet you'll give them your address so they can send you a package hopefully containing something you want.

Spam my mailbox all you want. That costs you time and money, not me.

We all like to joke about mailbox spam, but it's certainly a serious issue - and the worst part is there's little to zero incentive for USPS to stop stuffing our mailboxes full of garbage.

As long as the junk mailer companies pay their postage, USPS is more than happy to deliver the junk to you.

I don't have any data, but I'd wager junk mailers are a sizable portion of annual USPS revenue...

So you give fake phone numbers to your friends?

He's actually a nudist and so are all of his friends.

Obviously some judicious exceptions are made on occasion, but never without thinking through the consequences.