Reader Misha would like to know what can be done about a mail carrier who seems to enjoy throwing packages up several flights of stairs, and supervisors at the post office who don’t mind that she does this.
I love your website, and I figured you could help me out with some trouble of my own.
I went home for lunch yesterday and my USPS woman was trying to free throw a package from the ground floor up to my apartment on the 2nd floor. She missed both times and it fell down the flight of stairs to the landing in the middle, and she eventually walked up half the stairs and threw it at my door. At this point I was standing behind her and confronted her because it was my apartment, and my package and she didn’t care. I asked for her name [redacted] and her boss’s name (a shrug) and she said that she didn’t care and walked back to her truck.
The package is an ipod that my sister left at a family member’s house last weekend… The ipod worked as of last weekend, now hard drive is now making a grinding noise and not turning on.
I called the Raleigh Post Office for my zip code and spoke with a supervisor who said that they’d talk with [redacted], but they really didn’t seem to care. After that I went to speak with my apartment managers and they were shocked, but there isn’t much they can do. One renter said that she had seen the Postal Woman do the same things with her neighbor’s packages and another person in the office made a comment that [redacted] was crazy, suggested I contact the Post Office and watch out for unusual things in the mail.
Needless to say, I’m really pissed. The ipod was well packaged, but /somewhere/ in the trip and falling down 2 flights of stairs, it has stopped working.
Do you have any suggestions? I might call the post office back and speak with the manager who is higher on the food chain but I’m not sure it’ll make a difference. My boyfriend suggested contacting the Post Master and you guys, because you always know what to do.
Erg.
Well, since a) this seems to be a hobby of your mail carrier’s b) you already reported it to the post office and they didn’t seem to care, you’re probably going to want to escalate this complaint to a higher authority. The best we could find was the Office of the Inspector General of the USPS. They have a hotline that takes complaints from the general public. When filing your complaint, we suggest that you concentrate on the fact that this behavior is routine and that you and the other renters in your apartment building fear retaliation for reporting it to the mail carrier’s supervisor.
You might also consider starting a petition within your apartment building and submitting it as well.
Anyone have any better ideas?
Contact Information [Office of the Inspector General]
(Photo: Joy Of The Mundane )
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I had horrible delivery at my last apartment — in Raleigh.
If the package was insured, go to the Westgate office to fill out the paperwork for it. In fact, the Westgate office is a great place to go, period. Two of the three folks who currently work the main counter there have been with the post office for ages, and can give you some good advice.
Westgate USPS office:
[www.switchboard.com]
I once shipped a TV, DVD player, remote, and some random picture CDs to myself (I couldn’t take it all home on the plane). It was all well packaged in one box and insured. When it didn’t show up I called UPS and they informed me the TV was damaged in transit. They had to do a damage assessment, then they would send it back to the location of origin. It took several calls explaining that I sent it to myself to get them to send it to my home.
I wasn’t home when it was delivered, but my wife was. The UPS driver set it on the front step and started to walk off. She’s a small girl, so she asked the UPS driver to help her in with it. He ROLLED the box over the front step and left. The box was completely jacked up, and she could hear the shattered TV inside.
When I got home, I opened the box to find the TV completely demolished, the remote for the DVD player missing, and the CDs missing. The DVD player was fine. My experience working in several shipping & receiving docks and seeing how these drivers treat their cargo told me to make sure the package was insured. What I didn’t know (because I didn’t read the fine print on the back) is that the insurance is void if you pack the box yourself. My bad, can’t blame them for that…
Lessons learned: Always read the fine print, and LET THEM PACK IT.
Just after that I had two separate online purchases damaged by UPS. I cringe whenever I see a UPS truck outside my house…
Of course, after the attitude of the driver and employees I talked to over the phone, I avoid UPS at all cost.
Simple solution: wait till she comes to your apartment building with a package and is set to hurl it up the stairs, then hurl a large bag of garbage down on her and explain that she should complain to the building super.
@rychdom:Since when is the insurance void if you pack it yourself? I’ve had to ship several computers through UPS, always insured, and I packed them myself 9using the original box and packing material, or insta-pak foam). One time, the package arrived and it looked like it had been run over by a forklift. I filed a claim, they sent a rep, and two weeks later, we had a check in-hand for our maximum insured value.
The incompetency they show is pretty disturbing for people charged with safely delivering your belongings to you. On many occasions I would come home to find extremely important packages left sitting in the driveway by the door, or important letters sent to neighbors numerous times, while this mailman walks away on his ipod.
@crashfrog:
“Fed-Ex and UPS charge ten times as much, or more – and don’t deliver to my mailbox, regularly mistreat and lose packages, and in about every way are inferior to the USPS. At best, they’re about one day faster on the delivery.”
FedEx hauls most of the mail.
Good luck getting anything done about this. I’m good friends with the Assistant Postmaster in my town (she’s a Burning Man person too!) and even with that sort of connection our mail carrier had nothing done to him after two incidents that played out like this:
I have a day off work and am expecting a package from across country. One was Burning Man tickets for 2007, the next was a special delivery package I’d ordered on ebay almost two weeks prior and was not in the warehouse. So, totally different days, comepletely different houses (I left my girlfriend and moved across the highway to a friend’s extra bedroom) same mail carrier. Both times, I’m in my living room, waiting for the mial to be dropped in the slot. Both times, I hear mail in the box, run to look, and find a “I tried to deliver, but you weren’t home!” both times, I stick my head out and yell “Hey, I’m right here! You didn’t even knock!” and the guy looks all sheepish and says “I’ll be right back.” (didn’t even HAVE the package out of the truck!)
Guy still works the route, and has made a point of not delivering our mail if there is anything more then 1/4 inch of snow on the walk in the winter. It’s utter bs, but it’s the post office. Where else are you gonna go?
Here is a link I forgot to post in my previous comment.
[www.usps.com]
My Los Angeles post office suddenly stopped delivering certain mail – I
only found out about it because a couple of friends asked if I’d moved,
since they’d gotten mail back marked “unknown at this address” by the
USPS. So I went over there and asked — my mail carrier told me that
the manager of that post office had told all the carriers that they
“didn’t have to deliver any mail that didn’t have an apartment number on
it.” (!!) So I got the name of the carrier and the name of the post
office manager and wrote a letter of complaint to both my senators and
to my congresscritter, copying the post master general. It worked. I
got calls, letters, apologies, and, apparently, Congress looking into
the matter. I never lacked for a delivery again. The carrier may not
care, but the manager doesn’t want to lose the cushy job and if the post
master general is being hounded by your senators, things will be fixed.
At the very least, the manager will probably transfer your carrier to
another route in order to report back that he (or she) actually DID
something about it.
Meredith Wright
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my girlfriend shipped a package recently through the USPS that contained a record player lots of vinyl records, some books, and some clothes. it arrived late and minus the record player and several records, and with some unknown persons hats inside. The package had clearly been opened (it was sealed with different packing tape than we used.
she didn’t have insurance on the shipment so she pretty much has no recourse. she reported the theft, but the USPS site actually states that you won’t receive a response.
i would recommend shipping via UPS or FedEx for anything of any value.
When I moved to DC last year, my post office forwarded my new car title and my social security card to the new Massachusetts address of the girl who had lived in my room before me. Her name is similar to mine, but if her fiancee hadn’t googled my name and emailed me, I’d have never gotten that car title.
They also decided to “return to sender” all my medical bills last spring, for no apparent reason. I’d wondered why my health insurance was being so generous.
FedEx hauls most of the mail.
If you say so. That just makes the USPS an even better deal – FedEx service for the cost of a 40-cent stamp.
I live in Park Slope Brooklyn, and my mailman has a tendency of just leaving things in the front vestibule….especially magazines. I’m worried about having any packages shipped to my apartment, since neither my roommates nor myself are home during business hours…now I have everything shipped to my office.
The mail carrier featured in this story confuses me. Why isn’t she like my old mail carrier, who would just leave a “you have a package, come pick it up at the PO because you weren’t home” slip in my box at the fortress of mail. (apartment complex centralized mail thinger.)
Thing is, she never knocked on my door. I don’t think she even took the packages for apartment complexes with her in the morning.
Tell supervisor first. Then letter to the Postmaster. Then letter to office of the Postmaster General explaining the lack of effort on the Postmaster’s part of fixing the problem.
If none of this works, go postal.
I doubt this has changed since I spent a summer working as a postal carrier sub.
The carriers don’t really get paid by the hour, they get paid based on a set amount of time per piece of mail per route based on a semi-annual adjustment. Basicly it is Xsecs times average number of peices per day equals time paid.
So if the route is rated to take 8 hours, they get paid the same if they do it in 6 or 10.
So if they can shave 30sec here, a minute there, it adds up. That’s why they don’t wait for the door to be answered, or drive down a long driveway (there are also regulations against backing up a postal vechicle). Because packages take longer to sort, load and deliver, the carriers generally dislike packages.
Also, the USPS has some pretty severe union/mangement issues which does contribute to employee disgruntlement.
@post_break:
That’s assault. And I believe that assaulting a government worker, even if they are being a dork, is a felony with time in the pokey.
The mail people around here are pretty good. They even bring boxes to the door if they don’t fit in the package holder. I wonder if some mail carriers’ attitudes and the shenanigans they pull is related to that mentality because it is a government job it is a lot harder to be fired.
Cheers!
@MyPetFly:
You’re right. They are the only one mandated by federal law to deliver the mail (minus packages of course). Wikipedia has a good explanation about that:
[en.wikipedia.org]
Cheers!
There was a mail carrier I had for many years – this guy was a hopeless alcoholic. He was filthy, had BO, reeked of booze, and every night my neighborhood had to do a “mail exchange” Complaints did nothing. He outlasted at least 5 postmasters in town. Some of them actually tried to do something about it – but the most they could do was to send him to rehab now & then. Finally he retired. Mail carriers must have some crazy good union. Postal workers – gotta love ‘em!
I had a recurring problem with mail arriving damaged/ripped open and receiving boxes smashed and half torn open.
I contacted my congressperson’s constituent services office. I don’t know what the heck they did, but the problem disappeared within a week.
As usual, your mileage may vary.
Thus is why I don’t use the USPS if I can help it. They are the most inept people I have ever dealt with. Do yourself a favor and ship DHL or FedEx. Generally, they’re cheaper or about the same price, and have better customer service. I have NEVER had a FedEx/DHL driver throw my packages, and they always arrive in good condition and on time. That’s more than I can say for both UPS and USPS. Avoid them at all costs.
REVENGE!!
What you do is get a scrap piece of granite countertop from a kitchen and bath shop. Some shops have a scrap bin that will let you have pieces for free. A piece small enough to fit in the USPS Flat Rate box. The box that if you can fit it in they can only charge $9.80 NO MATTER WHAT THE WEIGHT! Mail that box to yourself and let us see how far she can chuck that box!
@describe_one: No, then they’ll just launch the packages from their vehicle.
Hire a thug to break the throwing arm, continue with replacement carriers until satisfied.
A previous poster suggested complaining to the 800 number, and I second that. My local post office was much more responsive to my consistent delivery problems once they were getting calls from the local consumer affairs office. Also, you get tracking numbers for your problems when you call the 800 number so there’s a slightly higher level of accountability.
I started making regular complaints to generate a paper/computer trail about my carrier who was constantly mis-delivering mail and not delivering packages (he wouldn’t even leave a notice that he’d attempted delivery…I had to track them down myself). Finally, after months of doing this, they moved my carrier to another route in my neighborhood. I wish he wasn’t someone else’s problem now, but I’ve done all I can do, and I actually get decent mail service from my new carrier.
The forces experienced by your ipod being thrown up a flight of stairs are probably no greater than those it has experienced on the other legs of its long journey from China, on a container ship, through several warehouses, multiple trucks and forklifts, maybe a train or a plane, a packaging line, a few sorting facilities with high speed conveyors and deep bins, and countless low-wage package-slingers. It’s supposed to be packaged to withstand those forces and if not, that’s what the warranty’s for. Your postal worker may be lazy and rude, but I doubt you’ll get her to change. And even if you did, it wouldn’t make your shipments any safer.
Not surprising. What do you expect from the government? Anyone who thinks the USPS or federal employees are motivated by good customer service also probably thinks Obama will fix all their problems and will somehow magically cause government to be efficient and effective.
I live in Cary, right next to Raleigh and our carrier’s favorites include leaving packages right ducked inside our garage if it is open OR right in front of it if it is closed.
I drive a SUV, so I open that garage door and pull out – hearing something dragging. It’s a package!
We only figured out what they were doing after my daughter was playing outside and figured it out.
Of course, no one cares and the Cary PO office just says we’ll report that to the area supervisor.
You should probably not use the Inspector General, that’s their fraud investigation team. Use it if you think people are stealing mail, sending illegal material, etc.
I’ve had to complain (I’m a shipper of moderate frequency through my business) re some various USPS issues.
The OP should kick it upstairs to the postmaster for the region by sending a CMRR letter. I had some luck sending a faxed letter, you can try that. You can use this link: [www.usps.com] to find the local postal customer council. Each website lists the postmaster for the area, or it’s listed on the locator.
For Raleigh (where the OP lives) here’s the information for your postmaster:
Greater Triangle Area PCC
1 Floretta Place
Room 88
Raleigh, NC 27676-9998
Howard Sample, Postmaster
howard.e.sample@usps.gov
T (919) 420-5134
F (919) 420-5114
Be persistent and keep kicking it upstairs. Expect supervisors to wash their hands of certain issues; often they are the ones giving clerks the wrong information.
Re the complaints about the postal inspectors and customer service issue. Yes, they suck at handling customer service issues – because they’re too busy chasing illegal pharmaceuticals, check thieves and employees who are hoarding mail. In other words, they are the wrong people to talk to about a regular customer service issue.
From their own website: [postalinspectors.uspis.gov] – “U.S. Postal Inspectors are federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction in all criminal matters involving the integrity and security of the U.S. Postal Service.”
You don’t ask the FBI to handle a dispute that belongs in small claims court.
If a postal employee is stealing or hoarding mail, or if you know someone is committing mail fraud, then you call the inspectors.
Trust me, before you call the Postmaster General, try your regional postmaster first. It usually does the trick.
A good idea would be to talk to your post master and at least ask how to get a parcel locker installed, they useually cost a bit of money so I’d try and see if every one in the complex wishes to pitch in. It doesn’t seem right to throw a package like that, but your package is thrown around a lot more than you realize. I worked at post offices for two years. Every morning parcels are thrown to their according bins, and they also can bump around inside the vehicle if theres no way to fit them right.
Another more obvious way is to have your package insured. It requires a signiture to be delivered. I am not sure why this person ordered something electronic costing over $100 witout ensuring it. Reguardless of the carrier damage could havew happened at any point getting to your place.
Oh God I have a story for you… I ordered canned tuna from Amazon. Got home from and smelled something horrible outside my door. Smelled like a dead animal. I carried the tuna box inside the house and proceeded to open it while the stench got worse. To my surprise, one of the metal tuna cans was crushed open…. Now someone explain to me.. What kind of force do you need to crush open a can of tuna?? which is already hard to open with a darn can opener!
BHD-Big Hungry Dog
fight fire with fire!
I had a problem with the delivery people many years ago when I was just…
Nevermind…
It was embarrassing…
Let’s just say that many adult magazines in unmarked packages were being delivered opened and fingered through.
The Postal Inspector stopped that in less than 3 months.
In fact he could have stopped it in the first month, but he wanted to see how many others were breaking the law.
New people working in the back after that.
@crashfrog:
For the most part, USPS does pretty well. I’ve mailed and received packages (I order from Amazon a lot, among other things) and I really don’t have a lot of complaints about them. And you’re right, a stamp is much cheaper.
I love to see people’s faces though, when I tell them that. >;)