A woman in California recently sold a laptop computer of hers on eBay for $1,300, but it never arrived at the buyer’s house. The seller had paid the U.S. Postal Service for insurance and delivery confirmation on the package, so she should be able to get her money back and see who signed for the package. Not quite.

She tells CBS Sacramento’s Kurtis Ming that USPS denied her insurance claim because the package was delivered and signed for as requested, but when she asked to see the proof of signature, the box was blank. So either the recipient had signed in invisible ink or no one had signed at all because the package was lost or stolen in transit.

Nope, insisted USPS, that’s a signature. She appealed her claim twice and no one would admit that there was absolutely no proof that the package had been delivered. In fact, all evidence seemed to show that the package had not arrived.

Meanwhile, the eBay buyer was able to get his $1,300 back through PayPal. And so the seller was out $1,300 and the laptop that vanished into thin air.

“Quite honestly I kind of feel like I’m being robbed by the Post Office,” she tells Ming.

Of course, once CBS got involved, the Postal folks suddenly cared… well, sort of.

The USPS admitted that the woman’s insurance claim should never have been denied, but offered no explanation as to why it denied the claim three separate times.

“We don’t know for sure what happened,” a Postal rep tells Ming, presumably before looking up at the clock and deciding to take a 90-minute lunch.

But now that USPS admits this package went missing and is out $1,300 of its own, surely it will be looking into the matter.

Oh wait.

“We are not investigating,” says the rep.

That’s the spirit!

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