how do you know if your mail is being mis delivered?

[onethatcares]

my wife just informed me that we've not been receiving certain items. Like the water bill, our mortgage bill, her mothers day card and a few othere items. Has anyone had to deal with the usps concerning thing like this and what steps do you take?

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

1. Mail yourself a few items with different return...

...addresses first and see what happens. Make copies of the front of the envelopes and the date you sent them before dropping them in the mail. If you don't receive one or more of them go visit your local postmaster. They'll resolve it.

[L. Coyote]

5. I did that and got an opened envelope back, and they did not resolve it!!

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

6. Really, that's a bit disturbing...

...do you have reason to believe you may be under some kind of surveillance? How long has this been going on? Is it still going on?

[onethatcares]

15. nah, I on't think I'm under surveillianc

but I'm pissed because we got the water bill delinquent notice and I have never, ever, ever been late on paying that sucker. They would have turned it off on the 3d of june. I'm also pissed because my wife didn't get her mothers day card from our son,and it was mailed. This is the first time I've been aware of it happening. BTW, we've lived in the same damn house for 30 years,

[L. Coyote]

17. I was at the time, and who knows now. It was the Iran-Contra era.

I did a poor man's copyright, using a postmark and sealed envelope. They ruined it.

Much of my mail still arrives altered from contents viewing.

[Selatius]

24. That's pretty fucking scary, like East Germany STASI scary. nt

[L. Coyote]

25. That's not the scary part. Break-ins, phone harassment, a long list....

all still not the scary parts.

I'm one of the lucky ones. It's the bullet in the head that is scary.
Ben Linder shot at close range. One of my good friends likewise.
Linda Frazier and others killed in the La Penca bombing, a long list... 30,000 missing in Argentina

George Bush Sr. May Face Charges: Conspiring to Kidnap and Murder Political Activists
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2459135

[Selatius]

28. That's why Kissinger can't set foot in France, Spain, Portugal, Chile, and Argentina.

Likely, he is wanted in other countries as well like Sweden, and France got involved because several French citizens were disappeared as well under Pinochet. Same with Spain.

[kdmorris]

2. I've had it the other way

Our mailman keeps delivering mail to our house for some people two streets over. The street names are completely different but the house number is the same. We usually just take the mail over to them, but I don't know what THEY would be able to do to stop it from happening.

[likesmountains 52]

3. I don't have a good answer, but one evening last winter I got home and had 12 pieces

of mail for 5 different neighbors (including 4 netflix movies) all in my mailbox..it did make me wonder where my own mail was ending up. I have also noticed an increase in mail I send being returned to me with the reason stamped on the envelope that the address was incorrect or invalid, but the addresses were fine and the people I was writing had lived at that location for years. I finally went to my post office to ask about that and the clerk told me that more mail is sorted electronically now and just ends up in the wrong place...

[DJ13]

4. Go to your local Post Office and ask for the Postmaster

Explain to him/her the situation, as its likely you just have a lazy or confused mail carrier.

Dont just speak with clerk behind the counter, only the Postmaster.

[SharonAnn]

7. In our case, speak to the clerk behind counter, NOT the postmaster.

He doesn't know much. They're the ones who take care of fixing things.

[BrklynLiberal]

8. The post office, like most other things in this coutnry that used to be reliable, is now run by,

composed of bureaucratic, stupid and in many cases, semi-literate personnel, who simply don't give a damn if you get your mail or not.

Have you had any occasion to have to stand on line at a post office recently? Even waiting to get stamps nowadays is a long, drawn out ordeal.
Most of the people behind the windows are either taking a break or doing their job in sloooww motion, no matter what time it is, or how many people are standing on the line.

And FORGET ABOUT IT during holidays like Christmas or anywhere near April 15th. You might as well bring a cot with you...as well as food and a porta-potty. You will be standing on line for a very long time, and when you finally do get to the window, it is most likely that you will be there for a very long time as well.

Bring one of those folding chairs every time you must go to the post office. At least you won't get varicose veins while waiting to get to a window.

[lonestarnot]

18. in "now" I am not a bit surprised to find that many there may be

involved in vote caging, pug managers anyway.

[Cleita]

9. We had this problem once some decades ago.

It turns out our regular mail carrier could read numbers but not streets. We found our mail being delivered to addresses that were identical to ours in number on different streets and we were getting mail for people on other named streets but the right numerical address. Our mailman was illiterate. We banded together and started taking back the misdirected mail to the PO and the mail carrier's supervisor. The mail carrier was assigned to different duties and we got a new one that could read. There have also been stories of years of undelivered mail found in the garage of mailmen who just didn't deliver it. You need to talk to the supervisor at your post office.

[atommom]

10. I don't know, but I get mail that was meant for my neighbors

at least twice a month. Sometimes the house number is the same, but not always. It really makes me wonder who is getting my mail.

[Warpy]

11. A family a block away and I get each other's mail

If it looks important, I'll walk it over and they return the favor. If it's just typical junk, I'll let the postman pick it up.

Mistakes happen.

However, if you suspect your mail is being diverted, contact the people whose mail you've been expecting and ask when they mailed the bills or other correspondence. Work from there.

Checking your credit report might be a good idea, too.

Good luck.

[Quantess]

12. This happened CONSTANTLY when I lived in San Francisco.

:grr: If an SF postal worker is reading this, please don't take this personally, but: San Francisco has (or at least had, in the 1990s) the lousiest postal service imaginable. Every day, we'd get a piece of someone else's mail, and I have no idea how often my mail was given to someone else. Probably every day.

If it was obvious junk mail, I threw it away. Otherwise I just stuck it in the blue mailbox on my street corner, hoping they'd get it right the next time.

[Rosemary2205]

13. The USPS has not been reliable for quite some time now.

not even post office boxes are safe anymore. The business I work for pays quite a bit for a post office box. I can't overstate how messed up our mail service is.

As for my home delivery. It's not uncommon to get the neighbor's mail or even to find someone's mail on the ground somewhere near our mailbox. There's just no telling where our mail is ending up. I spent a good 10 years fighting with our post office. It does no good.

In response, we removed our mailbox and opened a personal post office box. I have signed up for "e billing" and did have a fraud alert on our credit reports, but now I can freeze our credit and have done so. All this and somehow my mail still has managed to get into my neighbors mailboxes - and mailorder prescriptions were even delivered by USPS to the wrong PO box.

You can go ahead and tilt at the windmill if you must, but I doubt it will do you much good. IMHO it's good to complain but also do everything you can do to protect yourself.

[Occulus]

16. CASUALS

I'm a postal employee; I have seen the following going on in our plant.

NORMALLY, the USPS is very reliable. We process tens of thousands of pieces of mail every hour in my plant alone. Most of the mail going through the machinery is never, ever touched by the employees- we just dump the mail onto a belt and let a machine sort it.

Here's a picture of the Delivery BarCode Sorter, one of the principal machines used to sequence your mail into your carrier's "walk sequence".



The mail is removed from the stackers on the machine that you see in the background and placed into trays corresponding to the stacker on the machine. It's all very straightforward.

Now, prior to the newest APWU contract, postal managers were only allowed to employ so-called "casual" employees during the so-called "December exception period". What this meant was this: employees which everyone else on the planet call 'temporary', but which the USPS calls 'casual', could only be employed during the December exception period (late November through early January, I think).

Postal managers decided they didn't want to hire a new batch of full-time employees some years ago. Full-timers, such as myself, receive vacation time, sick leave, FMLA protection, union representation, a set, immovable schedule, and Federal holidays off.

Postal casuals receive none of those things.

So, postal managers, in their infinite cost-cutting wisdom, decided that they could hire postal casuals whenever they wanted, in lieu of hiring full- or part-time employees with those guarantees. They flagrantly and arrogantly violated the contract they themselves signed. They have paid millions- TENS of millions- of dollars to the APWU because of this violation; however, because each local must file the grievance individually, progress was too slow to evade the tide.

In the end, with the newest contract, the APWU caved to postal managers and allowed full-time use of casuals to slip into the newest contract. Did I mention we cannot strike? By Law? Ever? Period?

In addition to this, postal managers have been severely negligent in the training of new (casual!) employees. The USPS has an OJI program; this stands for "On the Job Instructor",. OJIs are used to completely and thoroughly train new employees. They are not allowed to actually work while they train new employees, and they are paid at a higher level than they are normally because they are training new employees.

I do not know of any OJIs being assigned to train new casuals per the terms of our contract in recent memory in my facility. I strongly doubt it has ever happened.

Remember that picture I posted above? I posted that for a reason. If a mistake is made at this point in the operation, the point illustrated in the above image, an entire tray of mail- 500 letters, bills, and whatnot, if not more- go to Podunk, IA, instead of where they should (Podunk being but one example). If the racks containing the trays are off far enough, an untrained or undertrained employee could easily misplace an entire tray of mail!

I myself have made that mistake, and more than once. It has to do with the exact width of the racks into which the trays are placed vs. the exact width of the stackers on the machines, as you may be able to see in the above image. It seems simple, but even a single mistake can have drastic consequences.

Postal casuals are either untrained or undertrained in my experience. This is the fault of postal management, and nobody else. They are solely to blame for the drop in the quality of USPS service.

I don't mean the casuals. I mean the management. If you're reading this, postal managers, get your fucking asses in gear. You're damaging people's lives with your cost-cutting measures.

[BrklynLiberal]

20. Appears that things are as bad for the full-time employees as for the public.

It is so sad to remember how reliable the postal service once was.
Another good "business" has fallen due to the greediness of union busters.
And people still wonder why we should have unions???????????

I have had information operators on the phone whose speech I could barely understand, and who seemed to have trouble spelling some pretty fundamental words that are part of addresses.
ATT was another organization that fell to the wayside, after having once been the most reliable phone service in the world.

[Rosemary2205]

23. Thank you so much for that incredibly informative post

I have forwarded it to a few people in business that are more than a little frustrated with USPS problems.

Thanks again.

[blondie58]

30. You are absolutely right, CASUALS

I am also a postal employee, so I see a lot of the problems from within, also. The Post Office, to try to cut costs, is using more automation to put the letters (and flats) in delivery order, so that it saves the carrier from more time in the office casing the mail to spending more time delivering it. Until they come up with robots, they can't replace humans for carriers. They are working at this time on the flat sorting machine, so that we don't have to put large pieces of mail in the case before we hit the street.

Management also is putting the pressure on us to do it fast and get back in. Now, I've been on my five routes for years, so I know where everyone is by name, but a new person on the route won't know that.

Sometimes I wonder if the guys on the Postal Board of Governors are Repubs and have a death wish for the P.O. IMHO, that would be a big mistake, we have to have universal mail service. There have been some routes that have been contracted out to private companies, and the resulting problems aren't surprising- mail not being delivered, or being stolen. I don't think that anyone who makes the $10 or $11 an hour cares like a permanent postal employee does.

[greenbriar]

14. We have been in our home since June of 2000 and we still get mail for the previous owner

sometimes it is bills from collectors

I just give them back to the mail man

today, I got an AARP card for the previous owner

[blondie58]

29. I know, I've been in my house for nine years and still get mail

that doesn't belong to me. Chances are, your regular carrier knows that and stop the piece of mail before delivery. The occasional floater or casual might not know that. The problem lies with the mailers- they don't seem to update their addresses as often as they should.

[notadmblnd]

19. occasionally I get some of my neighbors bills by mistake,

the mailman simply puts them in the wrong box. I just put them in their boxes.But if you have a neighbor your on the outs with, they could just be throwing it away?

[stubtoe]

21. It would be a good idea to talk with your Postmaster if you suspect errors.

If someone sorting or delivering mail is making repeated sorting or delivery errors, the PM needs to know about it.

Another concern is mail theft. You might want to consider getting a locking mailbox or a PO box for important/sensitive mail.

We have both problems, and it's a worry. Be proactive and you'll at least have done all you can.

[lonestarnot]

22. Take it up with the post office manager for your area. If you don't

get results, consider an intentional misdirection, then call the postal inspectors and put the hurt on your local station.

[LibDemAlways]

26. I am fortunate to have a terrific mailman (and one

hell of a nice guy) who knows everybody on the route and takes a great deal of pride in seeing that everyone's mail is delivered on time and to the correct address. He works 5 days a week. On his day off, however, things go downhill in a hurry and screw-ups are common.

I'd make it a point to be around one day when the mail is delivered. Talk with the mail carrier to find out if he/she is a regular on the route, and then explain the problem. If nothing else, he/she will be paying more attention to your mail in the future. If you don't have a regular carrier, you are more likely to continue to have problems with mail delivery and may have to take it up with the postmaster. Chances are someone else is getting some of your mail, isn't sure what to do with it, and is doing nothing.

[Monk06]

27. We have this problem occasionally in Canada. It is usually due to casual

employees dumping mail or employees with substance
issues dumping to avoid walking their roots.

It's hard to prove. Casuals are long gone before the
problem is found out and long term employees can plead
substance abuse disability if they are caught. (yes
in Canada substance addiction is a legal disability
covered by the Human Rights Act)

One Canada Post employee was found with a stash of over 2000
pieces of mail in his house because he was an alcoholic.