I am PO'd with the PO!

Back here in April and here in March, I wrote about the problems I was having with the Post Office. You may refresh your memory, if you like.

The only response I ever got (in late May) was from a woman who said she was a Customer Service Representative for the Postal Service. I explained the problems to her and she asked for the envelopes from all the delayed mail I had eventually received, claiming they would "tell her" what had happened to the mail that caused it to be delayed for so long.

You know how you put something in a special place so you'll know exactly where it is when you need it? Yeah, right. I couldn't find them to save my soul! So I told her if I did find them, I'd call her again. Two weeks ago, I found them (right under my nose) and promptly called Ms. Hill. She was on vacation, so I left a message asking her to return my call. That didn't happen; I had to call several times, and this morning I finally got a real person on the phone instead of voicemail.

I had to read the postmark on the letters (which ranged from December 6, 2006 to February 28, 2007), and then the dates on the yellow forwarding stickers, which were either March 5th or March 6th, 2007). Her explanation for the delays was that the mail had been mis-boxed, and the person(s) who had received them had delayed returning them to the P.O. Furthermore, she blamed the mis-deliveries on temporary workers hired for the Holiday season.

Now I can understand a few pieces of mail being mis-boxed by a harried temp, and I can also understand a person taking the mail out of the box and home without checking to see it if was all for them. I have done that too, but I always took the mis-delivered mail back to the P.O. by the next day. I hope others would do that too. I just don't think any other customer held my six pieces of mail for three months! That is a cop-out.

I guess the thing that bothers me the most about this is that I had no response from the local station manager, no response from the local postmaster and no personal response from the Postmaster General of the US. And the woman I spoke with offered no apologies for the poor service at all. She did admit that she had had other complaints about the physical appearance and parking-lot problems at that station, so she was going to report them to the local postmaster.

The purpose of writing this is to ask all of you to be careful if you have a Post Office Box and you close it. Stay on top of the employees there, to make certain that your first-class mail is really being forwarded to your new address. I wish I had.

A USPS Update

As was predictable, there is nothing to report. Back on April 25th, I told you about the problems I've been having with the Post Office not forwarding the mail I received in my PO box after I cancelled it.

I wrote letters to the local Postmaster and the manager of my local post office branch, and after six weeks, I had not received a response from either of them.

Taking your advice, and I wrote to the Postmaster General; sending his letter and copies of the other two on April 30th, by certified mail with return receipt requested. On May 3rd, he signed the card and on May 8th I received the receipt. It is now May 21st, and I have still heard nothing from any of them.

Where do I go from here? The local newspaper? The TV station? The President?

When the latest price increase went into effect, I had 57 of the old 39 cent stamps. I had bought a supply just a week or two before. I refused to buy the forever stamps they were hawking, since that would mean paying more, before it was necessary. But I had to stand in line for twenty minutes to buy some 2-cent stamps. Midway through that line I realized that if I had a business line card, I could have gotten in and out in short order. So, I applied for the card and I hope I get it before the next price increase (which may come sooner than we expect)!

NO RESPONSE (As Could Be Expected)

I apologize in advance; this is a long post.

You may remember that I previously wrote about having problems with the Post Office not forwarding mail from my old P.O. Box to my house. Here is a letter I wrote to the local PO manager and our Postmaster.

To date, I have received NO RESPONSE, from either person.

Mr. kenju suggests that I send a copy of this letter to the US Postmaster, and copy it to the editor of our newspaper. I do think that others need to know that this can happen. What do you think? Any other suggestions?

March 14, 2007

William Lloyd, Manager
North Ridge Station
U.S. Postal Service
7800 Falls of the Neuse Road
Raleigh, NC 27615


Sir:

Until sometime in October of 2006, I had a Post Office box for my business, for approximately 25 years. The number was ____, Raleigh, NC 27624 (North Ridge Station). In October, I made the decision to close that box, and at the time, I filled out and submitted a change-of-address card. I was advised to send notices to all my customers, advising them of my address change. I did that; informing as many as I could conceivably expect to receive mail from in the next six months, the period of time for which I was assured they would forward First Class mail to my home address.

By the end of November, I had received only a few pieces of mail with the yellow forwarding sticker. I would estimate that no more than five letters were delivered to me. I assumed that I had not received any more First Class mail during that time period.

In mid-to- late February, 2007, I received an email from a friend asking if I had received anything in the US Mail from her recently. When I replied no, she told me that she had sent to my P.O. Box address three greeting cards (Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine’s Day), all with 39 cent stamps. I had not received any of them.

Armed with that information, I went to the North ridge Station and asked a clerk to check. She could not locate any mail for me and she requested that her superior speak with me about it. That woman also checked my old box, but found nothing. She told me that the person who usually stuffs the boxes was off on Monday, and that she would question her about it the next day. She also showed me a sheet of paper with yellow stickers (about 14 or so), and told me that those were the “proof” that the mail had been forwarded. Her explanation for the fact that I had not received any of the holiday mail was that the person who addressed the cards may not have used the correct address, or perhaps the zip code was wrong.

I sent an email to the person who had first asked about them, and she wrote back with the address she was using – and it was most certainly correct. I heard nothing more from the Post Office until March 7th, when I received in the day’s mail: 2 letters from the woman who first told me she sent them (dated 12-15-06 and 2-13-07)
1 letter from another person (dated 12-18-06)
1 Christmas card from a cousin (dated 12-8-06)
2 invoices from a local business (to whom I had sent an address change), one of which was dated 12-29-06 and another for 2-28-07.


All of these letters were First Class. It is still within the six month time period for forwarding mail, and I am of the opinion that there is no reason why these items should not have been forwarded to me in a timely fashion! Please advise how this was allowed to happen and if possible, assure me that any First Class mail received at P.O. Box _____ for _______between now and March 31, 2007 will be delivered to my current address.


Respectfully yours,



_______

Cc: Howard Samples
Postmaster
1 Floretta Place
Raleigh, NC 27676

I'm Boiling Mad!

And I'm not going to take it anymore!

About three weeks ago, I received an email from Angie (Home Grown, in my blogroll) asking if I had received anything in the mail from her recently. I told her that I had not, and she said that she had sent cards for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine's Day.

I suddenly realized what might have happened: In October, I closed the business Post Office box I had for 25 years, and asked that the mail be forwarded to my home.The clerk explained that only First-Class Mail would be forwarded, but that it would be sent for a period of six months. Until I heard from Angie, I assumed that I had received all the First Class mail from the P.O. box, even though I had only gotten 5-6 pieces since the first of November. I had sent change-of -address forms to everyone I knew (or could remember) had the P.O. Box address.

So, armed with the information from Angie, I went to the P.O. about 12 days ago. I was told that all first class mail had been forwarded, and they could prove it because "they have a system by which they can track it." I was shown a sheet of paper with about 14 yellow stickers; copies of the forwarding stickers that are put on your mail (with your new address). Supposedly that was the way they could tell I had gotten everything. But the woman I spoke to agreed to check into it as soon as the person who is responsible for "stuffing" the boxes came to work. That was two weeks ago. Guess what came in the mail today?

I received two cards from Angie, one from Poopie (Poop Happens, in my blogroll), one from a cousin and two invoices that were due in December. This is all First Class Mail! It should have been delivered no later than a week after they received it! Four of those letters were mailed to me in mid-December.

The Postmaster will hear from me, along with the local supervisor, and if I don't get a satisfactory response from either of them, the newspaper and the television news are next on my list! At least one of my readers is a former P.O. employee. Care to hazard a guess about this, Eddie (Chicken Fat, in my blogroll)?