I've had several books lost in the mail, a couple returned to sender, and NOW I have one that says it was delivered on the 2nd, but it wasn't. I called the post office ,and they said it was delivered, too. The manager told me he would call me back this morning, but he never did. I tried him this afternoon and he was unavailable.

In July, we got a whole box full of May's mail, including our gas bill (thank goodness we pay online!), several magazines, and Pixxa Hut ads from May.

This crap has never happened to me before moving to this town. What is going on, and what are my options? Any ideas?

I used to work in a Congressional office as a caseworker. You need to send an inquiry to your Member of Congress (not U. S. Senator) ASAP detailing your frustrating experiences. If you can get others to do so as well even better, your Postmaster will find himself with lots of 'splainin' to do to his regional bosses, who will NOT be amused!

So I called again this morning, and this is what I was told:

I don't have a regular delivery person. I have someone different every day. It is a rural route, so that is why I have poor service, and there is nothing I can do about it.

Now, I am fuming mad.

Nothing I can do about it??? I'm stuck with lousy service???

Even if you don't have a regular mail carrier, you still have a Postmaster. I would follow John's advice about sending in a inquiry to your Member of Congress detailing your situtation/problems. Then the Postmaster will have to explain why you (a valued customer) is getting such horrible service. Maybe then you will be able to get a regular mail carrier on your route. Good luck!

Pam

Is there any way you could get a post office box? I know it's not actually a solution, but it would honestly be worth it to me, knowing I'd get my mail.

Dumping mail from  May in July is BEYOND unacceptable, and has nothing to do with whether there's a "regular carrier" for your route. Your Post Office is out-of-control. You can either either start an inquiry, or learn to live with the current situation. Your choice.

this sounds like a very lazy PO.  We are on a rural route (as is most of the county once you are out of city limits), and we do have regular carriers.  we've never had an issue with mail being late.  Our mailing address is the next town over, as we do not have a mail route with our PO, but we could get a PO box if we wanted to instead. 

Is your mailing address different than your physical address?  Do you have a PO closer than the one your mail goes to?  If so, I'd recommend getting a PO box there.  I have the nicesed PO worker at the PO down the road (in the town I'm in), and she is much nicer than those in the next town over (I've only gone there 2x when I had to pick up packages that they could not leave--international package that was insured or box was too big to fit in the mail box)

Michelle,

I'd start here - be sure to read all the way through this, so that you'll know when to call to talk to an actual human being(heh heh)

and good luck! :

General Information / Complaints (24 Hour/Live Person)

The Integrated Voice Response (IVR) system is the telephone system that provides automated USPS information.Call 1-800-ASK-USPS (1-800-275-8777) if you need to put your mail on Hold, if you would like to schedule a Redelivery, if you have a question, compliment, complaint, or suggestion , or help you find whatever you may be looking for, you go through the following options:

• Greeting - "Thank you for calling the United States Postal Service."
• Language Choice Press 2 for Spanish; if you press nothing, it defaults to English.
• You then go into the main IVR menu. The system prompts you for a verbal response (where you state the phrase and the system translates the vocal choice).
• The five (5) main IVR menu options and a couple of sub-options are as follows:
  1. Find a ZIP Code
  2. Get Mailing Rates
  3. Track and Confirm a Package
  4. Delivery Services
     1. Hold Mail
     2. Change of Address
     3. Request a Redelivery
     4. Post Office Information (Post Office Hours and Locations)
     5. Delivery Assistance (For Assistance With Delivery of Your Mail)
  5. More Options
     1. Change of Address
     2. Passport Information
     3. Buy Stamps
     4. Post Office Information (Post Office Hours and Locations)
     5. Other Information (For Complaint, Compliment or Suggestion) [this transfers to an Agent]

Live Person Hours of Operation-

• 8:00 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time (7:00 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. CST) Monday through Friday
• 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time (7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CST) Saturdays
• Closed Sundays and Holidays (2007 Postal Holidays )

Sounds like you live in Clarksville, TN!!!  And that is our city delivery description.

The up side is that my overnight mailings usually are free cause they never get them out on time!  <LOL>  (If it REALLY has to be there fast I use FedEx).

This sounds like a story we had in our local news over the summer, about a postman who was taking all the mail home and just dumping it in his house. He only worked one day a week, so people didn't really notice. Then the guy had a heart attack and called 911, and when they came to get him, they found his house stuffed to the ceilings with all the mail he had never delivered. It took the post office WEEKS to sort through it all and deliver it. They obviously intended to press charges, but the guy died of the heart attack...

I called. I filed another complaint. I was given another confirmation number and the assurance that they will call me when they know more. I really don't like the USPS. I am alway nervous about my packages. I have twelve books on the way to me right now. I wonder if I will get them all. I've had four go lost in the last thirty days...five if you count the one that they say was delivered on 10/2.

I filed a formal complaint with the USPS consumer affairs department.

We'll see what happens.

So the woman I have been speaking with in the consumer relations department called and spoke with the local branch manager. He told her that he recalls speaking with he a few weeks ago (!!!) about one isolated incident, and that he advised me to check my parcel locker (community mailbox) because I might have forgotten my package there. I have spoken with this man several times about several different issues. He knows who I am. So now, I know that the branch manager is lying about the whole situation. I am madder now than I was before!

Michelle,

I'm just curius, any developments in your situation?

I would notify PBS of this problem.  If you have too many books go lost they could close your account down.  Hope you were able to get some satisfaction.

I have never had trouble with my mail delivery but lately it seems that the mail is being held up somewhere, somehow.  All I get is third class "junk" mail.  I've got over 30 books in transit to me and haven't seen a book in days!  :( 

I am an ex-postal employee and worked in the mail forwarding and claims department, so  I would agree with filing a complaint.  Start first with the local post office, (or maybe not if you have already complained more than once) then the 800 number on the usps.com site, and then go up from there:  your state legislature, then congress.  I agree that when these people get involved, things start to happen.  

I'm kind of glad  that I am not the only one experiencing problems but wonder what is going on here.

For any of you who are suffering crappy mail service, if one call to the postmaster doesn't solve it, the next call should be to the head of your district. The mere fact that you call your post office back and ask for the name and number of the head of District should set them scrambling furiously. And then call District EVERY DAY that something is misdelivered or excessively late. Pass the number along to your neighbors and have them all call too.

I am a mail carrier, and I know there is NO excuse for the nonsense I'm reading about in this thread. Nobody gets madder at bad carriers than the carriers who are doing their best to do a good job!

It's still happening. Yesterday, I got my neighbor's bank statements, and my other neighbor's paycheck and a bill.

Hillary...so I sound like I know what I'm talking about, what exactly do I say when asking for that number?

A smaller budget means the local Post Office cannot retain the good workers they manager to hire. It's a budget thing. Good people cost more to retain, because the good people know they can get a higher paying job somewhere else.

But still, try calling your congressman. They might ask that you submit an official complaint first and ask you for the complaint number.

i would go on the advice from Anna B.  Sounds good to me.

Maybe you could 'poll' your town people and see if this is a major problem.   ---OR--- you could apply to be the postmaster, sounds like you need a new one.

I was told to log every problem through the 1-800 number (which Anna posted) because then there is a file retained at the USPS headquarters and if enough complaints are filed, it triggers an investigation into the procedures of the PO.  Once I started doing this, our service got a LOT better.  I also had a problem with no regular carrier, and eventually they assigned someone (after all the complaints).  Good luck.

As a postal clerk with 21 years experience, it really peeves me when I hear stories like this. The great majority of postal workers do their jobs very well, but all it takes to screw up our reputation is a small percentage of foul-ups like you folks have to deal with. All I can advise is complain, complain, complain! Start with your office's delivery supervisor, move up to the station manager or postmaster, and on up the ladder to state and regional offices. Your congressional rep would be good too.

My experiences with 1-800-ASK-USPS have not been good, I'm sorry to admit. This number is not actually run by the postal service, but by a company that it is contracted out to. So, when you get thru the maze of buttons you have to push to speak to a human being, they're not postal employees and don't really know much of anything abut the real workings of the service. You're always much better off going into the office and having a face-to-face discussion about your problem with someone in charge. If they tell you something that doesn't sound right, ask to see the regulation that applies to it. They've got books full of them.

Our mail service in one of the DC suburbs was abominable for several years -- and it was a LARGE suburb (100,000 pop.)  We had incoming mail returned to sender for invalid address, invalid zip, no such addy -- and it was regular, recurring mail (like bills, magazines, affinity program mail) that had been coming to our house for over a year before this started.  Suddenly, poof, it was gone, and we had to convince all of the senders that we did have our address, and we weren't trying to scam them somehow, since the PO had marked it "invalid" in one way or another.  We had mortgage statements disappear, we had our mail go to our neighbors and vice-versa, on and on.  The most annoying thing about it was that none of us felt we could trust the local PO (which was a large facility) after that, and there wasn't another within 10 miles or so.  We later found out that there had been a ring of crooked PO workers at that location; one in particular was very bad; he ended up in jail for over a year.