Certified Mail Missing??

pjstough · January 14, 2020

The first time we had mail sent to General Delivery in Tucson we were not aware that only the mail post office received General Delivery mail, and we had put the wrong zip code put on the mail that was sent to us. When we went to the main post office to pick up our mail we explained to the clerk the mistake we had made. Two different went to look for our mail, and after about 10 minutes one clerk came back with it, and explained our mail was in with the Postmasters mail. We were thankful that the clerks went the extra mile looking for our mail, as they have just as easily said, it is not in the General Delivery mail, sorry we dont know where it is.

2gypsies · January 14, 2020

In our case, we were dealing with Orange Beach, Florida which was a small town (at that time) and there was no main post office. I agree, whenever using a General Delivery address in a larger city, make sure you address it to the proper zip code. Using the U.S. Postal web site will give you this information. We never had mail sent to a larger post office. We'd choose an outlying small one.

Mary Lynn · February 1, 2020

I sent a letter certified mail a year ago to Escapees in Livingston, TX, and it NEVER arrived. It was only ever scanned at my local post office, so presumably my local post office or the first carrier lost it. I followed the USPS procedures and had it officially researched, but the researcher couldn’t find anything and the letter never showed up anywhere. The USPS “insurance” is a joke - they’ll only pay if they lost an object of value. My certified letter and prompt delivery were of great value to me, but they wouldn’t pay me anything because it had no value on the marketplace - they would not even reimburse my cost of sending a second letter by FedEx!

Randyretired · February 1, 2020

1 hour ago, Mary Lynn said:

I sent a letter certified mail a year ago to Escapees in Livingston, TX, and it NEVER arrived. It was only ever scanned at my local post office, so presumably my local post office or the first carrier lost it. I followed the USPS procedures and had it officially researched, but the researcher couldn’t find anything and the letter never showed up anywhere. The USPS “insurance” is a joke - they’ll only pay if they lost an object of value. My certified letter and prompt delivery were of great value to me, but they wouldn’t pay me anything because it had no value on the marketplace - they would not even reimburse my cost of sending a second letter by FedEx!

The Post Office handles a lot of mail and they do lose stuff and make errors. We have mail order prescriptions and 1 didn't arrive. The tracking showed it in and out until Denver. It was shown as in but never left. I first contacted the local Post Office that directed me to the USPS procedures as they couldn't help. After sometime the local Post Office called to say the package is hopelessly lost. The last time we forwarded our mail USPS entered the wrong PO Box. We know of some of the mail that was lost but have to wonder what other we missed. These kinds of problems just seem to continue now and again but I guess we have to live with it. We talked with our local USPS Master but we were told they are doing their best. A couple of years ago I received a jury summons 2 weeks past the jury date. They reassigned me but their tone made it clear they were not happy. Last year our property tax bill never arrived. When we went down to pay, The county had the bill as it was returned as undeliverable. I could go on but why bother.

Edited February 1, 2020 by Randyretired

TXiceman · February 2, 2020

Anytime we have anything critical or time sensitive to send we use Fed-EX Ground service. It cost a bit more than USPS, but they are much more reliable.

Most recent USPS screw up was we had the mail forwarded from Escapees to and address in Tomball, TX. It was sent Priority One so we could track it. Normally it was in Tomball in a couple of days. Well it was snt to a center outside of Dallas and being a weekend now, it was 5 days.

Ken

pjstough · February 2, 2020

1 hour ago, TXiceman said:

Anytime we have anything critical or time sensitive to send we use Fed-EX Ground service. It cost a bit more than USPS, but they are much more reliable.

Most recent USPS screw up was we had the mail forwarded from Escapees to and address in Tomball, TX. It was sent Priority One so we could track it. Normally it was in Tomball in a couple of days. Well it was snt to a center outside of Dallas and being a weekend now, it was 5 days.

Ken

It is harder to kill off the USPS when it is operating well.

Edited February 2, 2020 by pjstough

ARGO · February 2, 2020

......and when would that have been?

mptjelgin · February 2, 2020

I just checked on the insured, priority package that I shipped with USPS back in early January (I referred to it in Post #5 of this thread). Even though I know the camera did in fact arrive, and I received it back from Canon via Fed-Ex, the USPS tracking still shows it in "Alert" status, undelivered and delayed, with no additional updates since January 4th. Do you think that they plan to cut me a $1500 check for the insured value since they've "lost" it??

Kirk W · February 2, 2020

5 hours ago, ARGO said:

......and when would that have been?

I have used the USPS far more than any of the other services and in that time I have had only 2 serious failures that I can recall. In my career we used both FedEx and UPS and still do use them on occasion. Neither of them have proven to be perfect either.