USPS mistake?

[Retired LTC USAR]

Not bashing the USPS, but listen to this story:

So yesterday afternoon (14 December) there was a knock on the door.

A lady handed me a USPS envelope that had my address on it and explained it had ended up with her mail. She lived on a different street approximately 1/2 mile from me. The envelope contained my daughters passport.

When I ran the tracking number, it showed that the envelope had been delivered on 1 December at 11:10am.

So 13 days later after being delivered, the envelope finally arrives at the correct address. Glad she didn't throw it away, or worse yet, open it and decide to keep it!

 

[Rule3]

They send Passports in the mail without signature required??

 

[Jack222]

I get the neighbors mail in my box every couple of months. Makes me wonder about mine. But a Passport. That could have turned out bad. Glad it turned out OK.

 

[ColbyBruce]

What do you mean by USPS envelope?

Did her address and your address have the same numbers, though different streets?

Do both parties have the same last name?

Has your daughter been tracking her passport?

 

[Onomea]

Seems to me I read an article about some folks in Canada who were waiting on UPS for an inheritance check for ~$850K. After six months, they were gettin’ a bit antsy..

Ah. Here it is: UPS loses Canadian man's $846K inheritance | Daily Mail Online

 

[wingriderz]

U S P S for the most part do an awsom job. But they Will Not take any accountability for Any mistakes. 20 years ago I use to send my home mortage in by a money order each month. About the 15th mortgage company sent me letter stateing they had not received payment. I freaked out . Checked tracking on money order. Never cashed. Took about 90 days to get it re issued.After that had a return in ziplock bag money order was torn in pices and looked liked it was soaked in water. Postmaster said in matter of fact with attitude sorry bout your luck we are not accountable. I this month have a very bad feeling about my credit card bills sent in before the 1st. Those checks haven't cleared my bank as of yesterday Most of time its clear by the 7 th. Ugg.

 

[old bear]

I do believe, for the volume of mail the USPS handles they do a good job 98% of the time. Yet, when they blow it they do it big time, then to add to the mess, no one at the P.O. appears to care.

Sadly, I will not use the USPS for any important deliveries.

 

[johngalt]

Overall USPS is very reliable, but I worry about loosing financial statements. Especially since I am out of town often and have my mail held or forwarded. I'm concerned my statements will end up in the wrong mailbox. I'm gradually going paperless, so I get my statements online. Which isn't necessarily any more secure...

 

[SweetMK]

Did her address and your address have the same numbers, though different streets?

Do both parties have the same last name?

Almost weekly, we will get a neighbors mail.
NOT the same name
NOT a similar address number,,,,

the only similarity is the same 5 digit zipcode,,
and, both addresses end in "Lane".
There are a lot of "Lanes" in our county, because of the 911 address system.
Lane was one of the choices for a new address name for a private road,,,
we selected "Lane", actually our neighbor did, we just agreed.

I do get the next door neighbors mail often,
the mail person just divides the "stack" at the wrong spot.
Our mailbox's are next to each other, I simply toss the mail in their box.

 

[SweetMK]

U S P S Postmaster said in matter of fact with attitude sorry bout your luck we are not accountable.

I this month have a very bad feeling about my credit card bills sent in before the 1st. Those checks haven't cleared my bank as of yesterday Most of time its clear by the 7 th. Ugg.

We pay virtually ALL bills on a credit card,, then pay the credit card on-line with a paperless check.

My wife has always handled paying the bills,, it used to take over an hour,,
and that was with me helping her,,,
now, it takes a few minutes a month.

My wife comments how happy she is with the on-line system EACH month,,,

 

[Retired LTC USAR]

What do you mean by USPS envelope?

Did her address and your address have the same numbers, though different streets?

Do both parties have the same last name?

Has your daughter been tracking her passport?

1. A priority mail envelope you can get at the post office.

2. Our addresses did not match. Fox Den Circle is my street, Woodspring is hers.

3. Different last names.

4. I do not believe she had the tracking number.

 

[TX-Dennis]

I once had my tax return sent back to me in a plastic bag. It was literally in pieces. Fortunately I had filed early and still had time to send another copy without penalty. Other than that one experience about 20 years ago I've had pretty good luck with the PO.

Having said that, unless it really isn't possible I now pay all my bills electronically and file tax electronically as well. It's just so much more convenient and secure. Looking through my check book I have only written 7 actual paper checks this year.

 

[TTSH]

I do believe, for the volume of mail the USPS handles they do a good job 98% of the time.

Probably true, but that still computes out to one letter or parcel lost, damaged, delayed or mis-delivered out of every 50... or roughly 1 letter or parcel every two weeks in our case. Actually, that's about right. I am constantly redelivering mail to my neighbors... and I assume they are doing the same for me. It's much worse when my regular mail lady has taken a day off. In such cases, truly unbelievable things have happened.

It's also why I pay everything electronically or in person these days. I mail out nothing more important than a greeting card.

 

[LostintheOzone]

They returned 6 weeks of our mail after they said they would hold it. Happened right around the time you start getting your tax documents. Took me and my wife 2 days to gather the info electronically so we could pay our taxes.

Consequently will never have the USPS ever hold our mail again. We forward it to a relative nearby or just give the MB key to the neighbor and he collects it.

But we have an absolutely reliable carrier. She takes very good care of us and will be getting a nice present in a few days.

 

[NYlakesider]

U S P S for the most part do an awsom job. But they Will Not take any accountability for Any mistakes. 20 years ago I use to send my home mortage in by a money order each month. About the 15th mortgage company sent me letter stateing they had not received payment. I freaked out . Checked tracking on money order. Never cashed. Took about 90 days to get it re issued.After that had a return in ziplock bag money order was torn in pices and looked liked it was soaked in water. Postmaster said in matter of fact with attitude sorry bout your luck we are not accountable. I this month have a very bad feeling about my credit card bills sent in before the 1st. Those checks haven't cleared my bank as of yesterday Most of time its clear by the 7 th. Ugg.

The state agency my wife used to work for got many boxes of mail a day. It was not unusual for them to get zip bags containing mutilated mail weeks/months after they were sent.

Most seemed like they came through the dead letter department of USPS. It appears that some of the PO fancy mail equipment like to jam and eat mail as a matter of course. Of course they accept no responsibility.

 

[johngalt]

They returned 6 weeks of our mail after they said they would hold it. Happened right around the time you start getting your tax documents. Took me and my wife 2 days to gather the info electronically so we could pay our taxes.

Consequently will never have the USPS ever hold our mail again. We forward it to a relative nearby or just give the MB key to the neighbor and he collects it.

But we have an absolutely reliable carrier. She takes very good care of us and will be getting a nice present in a few days.

They will hold for a maximum of 30 days. That is stated quite clearly on the yellow hold card. I personally have gone over the 30 days and they have kept it anyway, but they don't have to.

 

[nachogrande]

HUMANS MAKE MISTAKES? SHOCKING.

The lady delivering your mail to you was under NO OBLIGATION to do so, never mind in a timely fashion. Why she brought it to the door instead of sticking it in the mailbox??? I've had some incorrectly delivered mail that was WAY OFF. If nearby I generally put it in the correct mailbox, or write on the envelope DELIVERED INCORRECTLY & put it back in the mailbox with the flag up. File it under stuff happens & be glad she didn't just throw it out.

 

[hoc9sw]

I live in an area with a common mail stop. Errors are a daily event, and someone (resident) takes it upon themselves to trash the misdirected mail (there is a slot for that), even though that is illegal.

But to come back to the mailman, if I called him every vile name in the book, it would be the best compliment he deserved that day.

 

[oneounceload]

1. A priority mail envelope you can get at the post office.

2. Our addresses did not match. Fox Den Circle is my street, Woodspring is hers.

3. Different last names.

4. I do not believe she had the tracking number.

All that lady had to do was write "wrong delivery address" on it and stick it back in her mailbox

 

[dg101win]

They send Passports in the mail without signature required??

That is correct, my wife and I got ours earlier this year along with the passport card. I received 3 separate envelopes for passport, passport card and return of my birth certificate.

 

[Hillbilly77]

I've had the USPS misplace a couple things on me over the years.

Most recently they misplaced an NRA decal that I sent to a member here. After a couple weeks he PMed me and said it never showed up so I sent him a new one. A week or two after that the original one showed up close to a month after the postmarked date.


Just this morning I mailed a Postal MO for a gun purchase.
I spent the extra 3 bucks for certified mail tracking. I didn't want to take any chances.

 

[GaryS]

I put most purchases on my credit card. One reason is the airline points that add up and allow us to fly to visit the kids and grandkids.

Another is it's easier to track purchases and handled refunds. Plus writing checks at stores is a PITA.

All of that being said, the USPS has to handle a lot of junque that UPS and FedEx don't have to handle. Still, the vast majority of it gets through.

I ship and receive items though the USPS and rarely have a problem. OTOH, more than once Amazon items shipped via UPS (in particular) have just disappeared in transit. Especially small envelope sized packages. Once they fall out of the UPS tracking system they are unretrievable unless and until someone physically picks it up from where ever it fell and scans it back into the system.

We pay virtually ALL bills on a credit card,, then pay the credit card on-line with a paperless check.

My wife has always handled paying the bills,, it used to take over an hour,,
and that was with me helping her,,,
now, it takes a few minutes a month.

My wife comments how happy she is with the on-line system EACH month,,,

 

[vytoland]

the USPS is operated by humans.....humans are NOT perfect.....

 

[H Richard]

I have gone to nearly all electronic payments via a on-line program through my bank. The only occasional question is a small creditor I pay that isn't on electronic receipt of payment, and the bank service must cut an check and mail it. With that one bill I usually mail my own check. What I really like is the "scheduling" of my payments. I can set the payment to be electronically delivered on a certain day, just a couple days before it's due. No need for them to have use of my money any sooner.

 

[coltle6920]

Doesn't seem like we had these problems when the mailman delivered right to your house.

Cluster mailboxes have been the norm for 30yrs plus.They seem to be the cause of many of our woes.I've had issues since day one.The only thing I share with another resident is the house number.Otherwise the street and last name isn't even close.We've become friends over the years and even manage to laugh about it every time one of us shows up on the others doorstep.

 

[Watchdog]

Not bashing the USPS, but listen to this story:

What's the point of your story?

 

[BearBio]

Better than the $800K UPS Lost!

They offered to refund the $32 for shipping!

 

[Rastoff]

I do believe, for the volume of mail the USPS handles they do a good job 98% of the time.

I understand what you're getting at, but I sincerely hope you're wrong with that number.

According to the USPS site, they process about 506.4 million letters and packages every day. If they only get it right 98% of the time, that means they lose/mishandle over 10 million packages or letters every day! I think they're better than that.

 

[johngalt]

I understand what you're getting at, but I sincerely hope you're wrong with that number.

According to the USPS site, they process about 506.4 million letters and packages every day. If they only get it right 98% of the time, that means they lose/mishandle over 10 million packages or letters every day! I think they're better than that.

I have no idea what the actual statistics are, but think about what goes into sorting the mail. Their computers have to be able to recognize hand written addresses and zip codes, and some people have very sloppy handwriting. Plus they have to be able to handle lots of various sizes and shapes of letters and packages. The addresses could be written anyplace on them. It is not a simple problem.

 

[LostintheOzone]

They will hold for a maximum of 30 days. That is stated quite clearly on the yellow hold card. I personally have gone over the 30 days and they have kept it anyway, but they don't have to.

I know.

We were in AZ the first winter we spent on the road. Originally they were forwarding our mail to different locations. That didn't work because of their inability to stop and start a new location within a reasonable time, like 10 days. So our mail was trailing us and each place we moved the delay became longer. So my wife called our local PO and ask them if they would just hold our mail if we forwarded it to them. The PO said they would hold it for 6 weeks.

Long story short we did the forward back to our local PO and they didn't hold any of it. Just returned it to the sender. When I started getting calls from the senders I knew something was up. We got home and I went to collect our mail and 6 weeks worth of mail was returned to the sender. They got our mail because it was forwarded to them but for some reason they thought we no longer existed even tho they had the card sent by my wife to forward.

Like I said, don't trust them to hold your mail. You're better off forwarding to someone you trust to hold it or just get someone to pick it up for you at your box. I paid the neighbor to do it last time and didn't loose a single piece of mail.

We pay all of our bills online now so the PO can't cause us any serious problem except tax documents. It's 99% junk. I only collect it a few times a week.