It looks like The Mail Carrier Of Shame may soon have a slew of new members: Federal officials have accused 16 Atlanta-area U.S. Postal Service workers of accepting bribes in exchange for delivering cocaine along their routes. [More]
USPS
16 USPS Workers Join Mail Carrier Hall Of Shame For Allegedly Taking Bribes To Deliver Drugs
By 8.31.17
Mail Carrier Admits To Taking Bribes To Deliver Drugs Along Her Route
By 7.5.17
The Mail Carrier Hall Of Shame has a new inductee: A USPS worker in Florida has admitted to accepting bribes in exchange for delivering marijuana to a man named “Steve” along her route. [More]
JCPenney CEO: Postal Service Is Really Online Retailers’ Biggest Problem
By 6.16.17
As bricks-and-mortar retailers attempt to attract more customers and make more sales, they are increasingly courting online shoppers. But all of those two-day shipping services and other free shipping guarantees are putting pressure on delivery companies, and that could be a big problem, according to the top executive at JCPenney. [More]
It’s Disturbingly Easy To Reroute Someone Else’s Mail
By 4.28.17
The U.S. Postal Service has made the process of changing your address when you move super easy and convenient, by just filling out a form online and paying $1. Maybe that’s not so good, though: The process is so easy that an identity thief can redirect your mall to their address by just filling out a form online and paying $1. [More]
Our Online Shopping Is Hurting Mail Carriers As Dog Attacks Increase
By 4.7.17
Online shoppers might joke that their habit only hurts their wallets, but it turns out, it could actually be hurting someone else: The number of mail carriers attacked by dogs is the highest it’s been in three decades. [More]
Former USPS Worker Joins Carrier Hall Of Shame With Mail Hoard Dating Back To 2000
By 2.23.17
We’ve all had a hard time keeping up at work at some point, maybe you get overwhelmed and things just pile up. But one former U.S. Postal Service worker admitted that he failed to deliver thousands of pieces of mail to residents over at least 14 years. [More]
Staples And USPS End In-Store Shipping Partnership After NLRB Ruling
By 1.5.17
Back in 2013, the U.S. Postal Service and Staples had a great shared idea: mini post offices in Staples stores would give customers flexibility and the postal service some extra cash. Problem is, the folks staffing these in-store post offices were Staples employees, which didn’t sit will with the union representing postal workers. [More]
USPS Gives Woman 7 Canaries To Replace Smashed Package Of Dead Birds It Delivered Before Christmas
By 12.30.16
A story that sounds like “The 12 Days of Christmas” gone horribly wrong is wrapping up with a happy ending (unless you happen to be a recently deceased canary): after delivering a smashed box filled with a half-dozen dead birds to a woman in Alabama, the U.S. Postal Service has successfully replaced the deceased avians with seven live canaries. [More]
Thieves Think They’re Stealing Gift Delivery; Make Off With Boxes Of Family Heirlooms & Dad’s Ashes Instead
By 12.22.16
‘Tis the season for thieves across the country to swoop down upon doorsteps, porches, and stoops to swipe all those gift deliveries waiting outside folks’ homes. But somewhere in Ohio there’s a thief who now has boxes of very personal items — including the ashes of a dearly departed dad — that are worthless to the thief, but mean the world to the family from which they were stolen. [More]
USPS Takes In More Revenue, Needs To Spend More On Workers And Vehicles
By 11.16.16
Here’s the problem that the U.S. Postal Service has with making money: it’s delivering more packages to quench our thirst for online shopping, but carrying more packages means that the service needs more and upgraded vehicles, and to pay more people to deliver those packages. If the USPS simply reported its profit and loss, it would have had a $200 million profit for fiscal year 2016, but things are not that simple when you’re a quasi-governmental agency. [More]
Video Shows USPS Worker Dumping Bins Of Mail In A Ditch
By 10.20.16 — Updated: 2.23.17
Yet another United States Postal Service employee is joining The Mail Carrier Hall Of Shame, after being accused of dumping hundreds of pieces of mail into a ditch — while a local filmed the whole thing. [More]
Online Shopping: Great For Rural People, Less Great For Delivery Services
By 9.12.16
More than a century ago, the Sears Roebuck catalog arrived in the mailboxes of rural Americans and changed their lives. It didn’t just make fine toilet paper: shoppers could order everything from clothing to guns to entire houses and have it delivered to their homes. Now online shopping has opened the world up even more to rural people, letting them buy food cheaper than local supermarkets and clothing that the Walmart a half-hour drive away doesn’t carry. [More]
Amazon May Or May Not Be Trying To Overtake UPS And FedEx
By 8.31.16
When you see a UPS or FedEx truck in your neighborhood on a weekday, or a U.S. Postal Service truck on a Sunday, they’re probably there with some kind of delivery from an online retailer, and that retailer is likely to be Amazon. As more of our everyday shopping happens online, someone will need to bring those items to our doorsteps, but it may not necessarily be the carriers we’re used to. [More]
The Mail Carrier Hall Of Shame Inducts A New Member Accused Of Interfering With Mail
By 8.18.16 — Updated: 2.23.17
Are we shocked to hear that a Florida mail carrier was accused of unloading hundreds of pieces of mail into a pizzeria’s trash bin? Not so much, because we’ve seen this happen enough to induct this latest suspect into the Mail Carrier Hall Of Shame, which is a thing we just made up. [More]
U.S. Postal Service Asks To Continue Grocery Delivery Experiment Until Fall 2017, Expand To More Cities
By 7.12.16
Looking for more revenue sources, the U.S. Postal Service would really like to put their delivery fleet and employees to work delivering pretty much anything that someone will pay them to deliver. That includes groceries, dry cleaning, and pretty much anything else that will fit in a USPS vehicle that can be lugged to customers’ doorsteps. A test of “customized delivery services” began back in 2014, and the USPS has asked to extend it until October 2017. [More]
Postal Worker Caught On Security Camera Pepper-Spraying Family Dogs
By 6.28.16
Last week, something pretty normal happened at a house in Houston: the postal carrier brought the mail, and the dogs hanging out in the yard barked at him. What happened next, caught on a security camera, was unusual: the man sprayed all three dogs with what appears to be pepper spray, even though they were secured behind a heavy gate. [More]
USPS Reports Some Good News, But Still Facing “Fundamental Financial Challenges”
By 5.11.16
It’s been a long and bumpy road for the United States Postal Service in recent years, what with the agency reporting billions in net losses year after year. USPS had some good news recently, however: operational revenue was up for the quarter! Sounds great, right? But on the other hand, financial matters are still dire, and the agency wants Congress to help out. [More]
