Can you trust the US post office to forward your mail?
by Jen
In the past I’ve been a defender of the US post office. It can’t be easy to deliver mail correctly as often as they do. What I didn’t realize is that when they are incompetent, that’s you’re problem – they don’t care.
This past May (five months ago) I moved across town from one zip code to another. I set up a forwarding order from Old Zip to New Zip and gave it to the carrier in advance of the date I wanted forwarding to start, as you have to do. Immediately, I stopped getting mail. It was getting bounced back to senders – including important checks and bills. I spent a lot of time driving to the post office and talking to a supervisor to get it straightened out. It was like they’d never seen a forwarding order before. Before my very eyes they struggled to understand what their own form meant.
I called everyone who sends me something important near the end of the month, told them the new address and warned them to expect the returned mail. Fortunately, they all took good care of me, but it was still a month before I had all my late checks and bills at the new place, because it took so long for the mail to be returned to sender.
But that’s not the worst of it. I thought everything was resolved until August, when I bought something on ebay for $18 altogether – vintage items that couldn’t be replaced. After a few weeks, I emailed the sender and asked what address she’d sent them to. She rattled off my new address without a single typo, and gave me a tracking number too. I checked the tracking number on the USPS website: it said my package had arrived on August 6th to my old zip code.
Get it? My new post office, for lack of a better term, anti-forwarded it back to my old one. Now how on earth does that happen? And now it’s gone for good. They’re certain the carrier delivered it, and can only assume the new tenants in my old apartment opened the mail and kept it. I have my doubts about that. I’m sure it can happen, but I’ve never had anyone steal my mail like that – it’s a federal offense.
I asked the post office to investigate how this happened and get back to me. I was assured I’d receive a call by the end of yesterday. I didn’t, so I’m sharing this online and you’re welcome to link to it anywhere you see fit. As far as I’m concerned, the post office misdirected my mail as good as intentionally – which, again, is a federal offense. And somewhere through all of this, I recently learned they also bounced some mail back from my bank, causing the bank to close my ATM card for fear of fraud – yet another phone call and inconvenience for me to deal with.
I’m not sure what the alternative is here. I’ve eliminated use of the post office as much as possible, more because I prefer going paperless than out of any desire not to do business with them. But now I don’t want to do business with them either. In the future, maybe if I have plenty of notice before moving I can notify everyone who sends me mail before it’s too late, and skip the whole forwarding process. All I know is, in this case, I actually experienced more loss and delay of mail because of forwarding than I think I would have from not using a forwarding order and just handling it myself.
Related posts:
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- Junk Mail: send back that empty postage-paid envelope
- Another way to get off junk circular mailing lists
- Opting out of Junk Mail and phone calls
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Posted in Scam Notices on October 2, 2008
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October 6th, 2008 at 10:00 am
At least you didn’t get arrested over a Post Office error! They decided to “anti-forward” a court summons to me, which was over something small. So… a few days later I get a call saying I’m a fugitive and I have to come turn myself in!!! I spent 3 whole days/nights in COUNTRY PRISON because the postal service can’t do their fricken jobs!
October 6th, 2008 at 10:10 am
General Chaos, that’s appalling! Also, I’m a little surprised something that important was sent in the mail. I know if you’re suing someone, you have to have the summons delivered in person. It ought to be the same in a situation like yours.
My sympathies on what you went through. Yeesh.
January 8th, 2009 at 10:52 am
I just had a problem similar to this when I moved a couple of weeks ago.
I filled out the Change of Address form at the post office and dropped it in their box a few days before moving. Additionally, for the sake of redundancy, the day I moved I also filled out the online Change of Address form (for which the post office charged $1 to my credit card). The forms indicated that a confirmation would be sent to my new address within 7-10 days.
I had been expecting some Netflix and Gamefly discs to be forwarded to the new address, but by the 11th day nothing had arrived at the new address; a change of address confirmation also had not been delivered to the new address. I had to drive 3 hours to the old address to try to retrieve my mail, but a new tenant had moved in and the discs I was expecting were missing (the old landlord allowed me to look for my mail).
I called the Post Office and filed a complaint at the national call center and was told to expect a call within 24 hours. The next day a person from the old address post office called and said the mail should have been forwarded, but since it wasn’t it would begin today. The person acknowledged that the post office had been failing to forward the mail, but didn’t offer any regret or apology or accept any responsibility. The person expressed no concern for this problem.
It was truly miserable customer service.
January 8th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Wow. I was hoping it was just my local PO, but maybe it’s a systematic problem? How scary – they’ve gotten forwarding right so often for so long, and now they’re suddenly losing it?
January 31st, 2009 at 9:30 am
I use bulk mail a lot in sending out solicitation to my customers. You ought to see some of the stuff they have done to my mail over the years. Theey found 300 pieces in a dumpster a couple years ago. I have had hundreds and hundreds of pieces returned to me stating incorrect address or not deliverable as addressed, and it turned out every single piece was addressed correctly. I went to the Post Office wanting immediate answers…to no avail. I was called several days later and found out it was being done by the carrier so it didn’t have to be delivered. hmmmmmmmmmmmmm go figure!
March 27th, 2009 at 7:58 am
My tax return has gone missing due to the forwarding process. I can’t totally relate to this…
April 16th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
I have the same problem and my question is can one sue post office?
May 29th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
Yup, I’m being evicted from my apartment, so the first thing I did was pick up a PO box to forward to until I get a new address.
I currently have a shipment coming to me from an online store. I was assured by the person who gave me the change of address form that this package would arrive at my doorstep. Well, its been 4 days since the online tracking for the package was updated, and it claims to be last scanned in my home city, somewhere.
I went around to two post offices, got two stories. No one could tell me where my package is, or even if its still in the city. I was told it would either be forwarded to the PO box *additional postage due* or returned to sender. Hows that for ya, the want to charge me double for picking it up out of box in their office rather than driving it to my doorstep.
They also told me that it was my own fault, that I should have known such package would not be forwarded. When I explained I asked specifically about this package and was told it would arrive, my response was “well he didnt know it was this class of mail.”
So, the post office can break their own rules, tell you one thing and do another, extort you to recover your own property from them, and its all YOUR fault, not theirs. And you have no recourse. All shipments I make from now on will be UPS.
October 11th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
You can not trust a Govenment service to do the right thing, the system is broke and if you ever had to track a shipment you will know what I am talking about. For mail forwarding, I use http://myuspostoffice.com a private firm in Boston that ships all my packages via their PO box rental system at great rates and very competitive. But to answer your question, no I would not trust my mail to usps.
November 13th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I am employee of post office and in 07 I began to have major problems with my mail not delivered right , I am a city mail carrier on workers comp , and I was furious , I moved and had mail forwarding problems moved again and had more , the extremely important things returned to sender lack of response from supervisors and postmasters disgust me , they lay blame of carriers who are blamed for everything and as employee I know this is false , it is broken system I see worse and worse and needs major fixing obama want to fire someone leave auto alone and work on us post office !
When employees have this much problems and no response time to fire people in charge and fix it, should work well if people mail less not worse !