Addressing issues by mail carrier

lieferung

lieferung

Feedback: +19 / =0 / -0
Joined
May 24, 2016
Messages
2,678
EDIT: this was in Community, but I guess a mod thought it was related to a purchase made on here... It wasn't.

Today I was supposed to receive something that required a signature (another issue of its own...) and my family and I were sitting by the front door in the living room watching a movie while I was periodically updating the tracking to see where my package was and waiting for the telltale knock at the door. Well the movie ended and the tracking says nobody was home at the time of delivery so they left a notice.

A complete lie.

This is not the first time I have had issues with my local USPS office, but I was wondering if there was any reasonable way to get these issues addressed. I have worked customer service and I am well aware that "talking to the manager" is often times a performance and issues are never addressed. Is there any course of action to take that will get results or is the best I can do is voice my grievances?
 
Last edited:
Maybe try going above their local branch if you aren't having any success. Calling or emailing someone. Or just show up at your post office and speak to someone in person. I certainly feel your pain. I'd be in my car chasing him down if he ever did that, my goodness! (Luckily I live in a small enough town he'd only have made it around the corner)
 
This happened to me with an important delivery, and the next time I saw the mail carrier I explained that I needed him to ring the bell and wait for me to answer the door—I HAD BEEN home when he failed to deliver an important package.

He said okay and it hasn't happened since.
 
  • Like
Reactions: BP_
Call the postmaster, he or she should take care of it. I had a custom knife showing it was delivered. Well, the mail hadn't been delivered at the time so I thought something was up. I caught the substitute carrier later in the day (during Christmas) before he left my mail box, he looked in the truck and couldn't find it. It had been delivered to the wrong address a whole subdivision over. Just so happened the recipient knew me and called me. I went over and picked it up. He wrote the postmaster and I talked to her in person...I got a letter of apology from her. I haven't seen that substitute since then (2009). I had another substitute drive past the mailbox with another custom knife (signature required) in his truck a year before, no way he rang the bell or even got out of the truck before leaving the notice. I finally caught him a street over.

My regular carrier is great, she's even called me before leaving a notice. Substitutes...not so much :thumbsdown:
 
JB in SC said:
Call the postmaster, he or she should take care of it. I had a custom knife showing it was delivered. Well, the mail hadn't been delivered at the time so I thought something was up. I caught the substitute carrier later in the day (during Christmas) before he left my mail box, he looked in the truck and couldn't find it. It had been delivered to the wrong address a whole subdivision over. Just so happened the recipient knew me and called me. I went over and picked it up. He wrote the postmaster and I talked to her in person...I got a letter of apology from her. I haven't seen that substitute since then (2009). I had another substitute drive past the mailbox with another custom knife (signature required) in his truck a year before, no way he rang the bell or even got out of the truck before leaving the notice. I finally caught him a street over.

My regular carrier is great, she's even called me before leaving a notice. Substitutes...not so much :thumbsdown:
Click to expand...

I'm rarely if ever home during the day so I don't know who my "regular" is, I always assumed they rotate personnel. Today is Saturday though so if there is a weekday person it probably was someone else today... I suppose writing the postmaster is worth a shot.
 
lieferung said:
I'm rarely if ever home during the day so I don't know who my "regular" is, I always assumed they rotate personnel. Today is Saturday though so if there is a weekday person it probably was someone else today... I suppose writing the postmaster is worth a shot.
Click to expand...

I would call, leave a message if necessary, he or she will call back.
 
lieferung said:
EDIT: this was in Community, but I guess a mod thought it was related to a purchase made on here... It wasn't.

Today I was supposed to receive something that required a signature (another issue of its own...) and my family and I were sitting by the front door in the living room watching a movie while I was periodically updating the tracking to see where my package was and waiting for the telltale knock at the door. Well the movie ended and the tracking says nobody was home at the time of delivery so they left a notice.

A complete lie.

This is not the first time I have had issues with my local USPS office, but I was wondering if there was any reasonable way to get these issues addressed. I have worked customer service and I am well aware that "talking to the manager" is often times a performance and issues are never addressed. Is there any course of action to take that will get results or is the best I can do is voice my grievances?
Click to expand...

USPS now use GPS scanners with GEO location. If someone in management there will take a look they can tell you if the scan was made in front of your house.

If funny business went down then it probably was not the regular carrier. They take days off too and have temps fill in, that's when all hell breaks loose.
 
To make two long stories short, I would begin by talking with the manager at your local USPS branch. Escalate from there if you feel it's necessary.

Now my two stories. I will preface them by saying USPS, by and large, has done an exceptional job with bidirectional mail and package delivery on my behalf over nearly three decades of personal experience. (Note this excludes hassles relating to passports, customs, customer service counters, etc. Those have a greater tendency towards :mad:.).

Last year I was expecting a knife from the Exchange. The awesome seller (@Wavicle you're still the greatest!) had sent me a pic of the complete mailing label with tracking info. It was perfectly addressed with a "normal" residential street address. My wife was home on the expected delivery date; I was tracking from work. The tracking went from "out for delivery" to "cannot deliver as addressed; returning to sender" without any attempt to leave the package, or a note. Luckily first thing next morning my wife was able to visit the branch office in person, talk with the manager, and retrieve the package before it vanishd on a truck (or wherever).

Turns out the manager is a local community member, and a stand-up guy. Nice normal dude. I wrote a thank you letter and dropped it off personally a few days later. He seemed surprised, and pleased. My guess is they don't get a lot of formal "thank you's." No other similar problems before or since (which is good because lots of small priority boxes have come since then). :D

My second storry was long ago in St. Louis. My wife and I went on an extended break one summer, three weeks or so, and had a hold placed on our mail. Well, after we had come and gone, we still weren't getting mail 2 weeks after returning. We talked with our postal carrier, and she got REAL snooty. We talked with the branch, and we started getting our mail again, but no sign of the 5 weeks we were missing.

Well, this was back in the day where I got a pay check in the mail every two weeks and we were barely getting by, so it was a big-BIG-deal to me. We talked with our local carrier again, and she was really REALLY snooty and outright belligerent, accusatory, defensive, and so on! So...we made a call to the postal inspector. 24 hours later we had a knock on the door and our carrier was standing there with all our past-due mail, including my three pay checks....and.... she was the nicest, friendliest, most apologetic woman anyone could imagine. A real sweetheart.....

Draw your own conclusions. My gut tells me the recent "return to sender" event may have been an electronic mishap. The St. Louis incident, well, I tend to think the best of people...but....

Anyhow, two memorable incidents in nearly 30 years. Honestly, that's better than I am at my job. Hope you get your issues worked out OP! I understand the frustration.
 
Last edited:
good luck trying.

ive got the worst usps service, workers, and management possible. stolen packages by delivers, management that called me a liar and told me i was stealing my own packages....i know think about that one. mail deliver not delivering on saturdays. wrong delivery to addresses constantly. mail deliverer parked under trees drunk and sleeping. so many other ridiculous events its almost like a bad movie. i finally installed cameras to prove the delivery person was stealing and that finally stopped once i proved the packages werent delivered by the delivery person. they didnt fire her even though they saw she was lying and stealing packages. she is still my delivery person. old union cant be fired locked in deal.

been complaining for over a decade to the top of the food chain and nothings changed.
 
Damn, some real horror stories.
I guess I'm very lucky. I have gotten to know all the clerks inside the PO by me and have been very friendly with my carrier for the last 15 years.
It's the reason I prefer using the PO for all shipping needs.
I have found when you treat people as you'd like to be treated, things go extremely smoothly.
Joe
 
jbmonkey said:
good luck trying.

ive got the worst usps service, workers, and management possible. stolen packages by delivers, management that called me a liar and told me i was stealing my own packages....i know think about that one. mail deliver not delivering on saturdays. wrong delivery to addresses constantly. mail deliverer parked under trees drunk and sleeping. so many other ridiculous events its almost like a bad movie. i finally installed cameras to prove the delivery person was stealing and that finally stopped once i proved the packages werent delivered by the delivery person. they didnt fire her even though they saw she was lying and stealing packages. she is still my delivery person. old union cant be fired locked in deal.

been complaining for over a decade to the top of the food chain and nothings changed.
Click to expand...

Wow! That's horrible!

ETA: --for posterity's sake-- wow! my 500th post! Sorry, back on topic now--
 
Last edited:
I kept getting pink slips saying parcels could not be delivered when tracking said "delivered." ???? Asking what to do so they could be delivered, supervisor found mail carrier was scanning packages for tracking all at once before going out each morning. I made it clear I was not complaining - just want to know what to do.

Now my packages are dumped next to my rural mailbox out at the road or thrown on the driveway in rain or snow.

Can't win.

USPS loses 5-6 $billion a year. Congress votes money to make up the loss each year. USPS official position: "We don't take taxpayer's money."
 
Yep. I've only been dealing with USPS for a few years, so maybe it's just a bad hand in terms of who my mail carriers are -- but my experience has been identical to posts #11 and #12.
 
I kept complaining to the Post Master until my problem carrier was changed.

She would open my screen door and throw packages at the front door rather than walk the extra five feet. I saw her do this through the peep hole more than once, the last time I saw her was when I swung the door open after she threw the box and proceeded to call her out on it.

Another time I had the garage open and I was under the hood of a car doing something. I don't remember what I was doing but I do remember being up to my elbows in grease. She parked at the end of the driveway and honked for me to come get the package she was supposed to deliver. I refused while showing her I was dirty and told her to get out of her truck, stop being lazy and deliver the mail. She wrote on the package that I refused it. Low and behold it was the diploma for my Master's degree and it specifically said all over the envelope "fragile" and "do not bend".

The squeaky wheel gets he grease.
 
The whole town I live in has issues with our local PO. So much so that a bunch of us wrote our State Rep about it who promised action. What happened after that? Nothing. The rep supposedly had a meeting with the local postmaster, who is a big part of the problem, and said things will get better. They haven't. When I was finally able to corner the Postmaster she threw all her employees under the bus and said she would love to fire them all but she would have to go through 3 different unions to do it.. Meanwhile we still all get other people's mail every day and some of my packages get marked as delivered but when I go to pick them up they have been shipped 1 town over and no one knows why or who did it.. 0 Personal Accountability at the PO..
 
Some parcel delivery company`s get the deliverer person to take a photo of your front door to prove that they actually made an attempt to deliver, I got a message that there was nobody home, When i was home and no card was left, The parcel company showed me the photo it was from another house with my door number but the wrong street name.:rolleyes:

John.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top