Mailgate 2015

Or The Battle for Getting What's Legally Mine From a Bunch of Angry People Who Hate Me

It all began innocently enough. Staring down the barrel of a weeklong family beach vacation, I placed a hold on my US mail, like most normal Americans would. I assumed that, as had been the case in the past, I'd receive my mail in a tidy rubber-banded bundle when I returned from my trip. Oh, the naïveté! Getting home was when the adventure really began.

Mailgate Day One: Saturday, September 26

I woke up the morning we departed from the beach to a confirmation email from the USPS that my mail hold had ended and I'd be receiving my mail if I'd elected to have it delivered. (I had.) I usually hate getting my mail, but I was so anxious to pick it up that I drove past my mailbox to collect it before I even went into my house. The box had one piece of mail in it. It was junk. Hrm. Maybe it'll show up Monday?

<Mailgate rests on Sundays.>

Mailgate Day Two: Monday, September 28

I had the luxury of working from home on Monday, and I checked the mailbox in the early afternoon, expecting to see my tidy bundle of accumulated mail. I had two pieces of junk mail. Maybe three.

I decided it was time to make sure nothing had happened to my mail, so I called the USPS customer service number. They were incredibly polite, said they would file a claim on my behalf with the local post office. They also gave me the phone number for the local office, which I called a few times before connecting with a human being. The woman I spoke to assured me that they'd send my mail out the next day. But I received a call from a different woman later, informing me that there was no mail in their location for me and that it should have been delivered. They asked me if my normal service had resumed and I said yes, that I had received mail that day and on Saturday. And so begins the conversation I would have multiple times in the coming days.

USPS: "If you got mail, you should have received your held mail. We don't have anything for you."

Me: "But I never received anything."

USPS: "We don't have anything. You must not have received any mail while you were gone."

Me: "That's impossible. I was gone for more than a week. I've never gone more than a day without getting mail."

USPS: "We'll check with the carrier and get back to you.

 Then I wait. And they don't call.

Mailgate, Day Three: Tuesday, September 29

Around noon, it became clear that the post office was never going to call me back to let me know what the carrier said. So I called them yet again. I spoke with the same woman from the day before, who said she talked to the carrier and he didn't have any accumulated mail for me. He's been delivering what he has. Our conversation goes something like this:

USPS: "If you got mail, you should have received your held mail. We don't have anything for you."

Me: "But I never received anything."

USPS: "We don't have anything. You must not have received any mail while you were gone."

Me: "That's impossible. I was gone for more than a week. I've never gone more than a day without getting mail."

USPS: "We'll check with the carrier and get back to you.

Me: "That's what you told me yesterday. I know I had mail coming that week. I'm definitely missing bills. I definitely got mail."

USPS: "There's nothing here. We'll talk to the carrier again and call you back."

I wait. They don't call.

Mailgate Day Four: Wednesday, September 30

At this point, I'm getting seriously worried because I know I was set to receive checks in the mail from my home equity loan company and a credit card company. I call both and have to change an account number with one, and hold off with the other. I begin wondering if I should change all account numbers for all bills that should have arrived while I was on vacation. But before I do that, I decide to call another post office – just in case my mail went there instead. (It's the branch where I'd have to go to sign for certified mail or packages.)

I call them and — I kid you not — the woman from the original post office, the one I've been dealing with for two days now, picks up. She knows me as soon as I start talking. The conversation goes like this:

USPS: "If you got mail, you should have received your held mail. We don't have anything for you."

Me: "But I never received anything."

USPS: "We don't have anything. You must not have received any mail while you were gone."

Me: "That's impossible. I was gone for more than a week. I've never gone more than a day without getting mail."

USPS: "We'll check with the carrier and get back to you.

Me: "That's what you told me the past two days. I know I had mail coming that week. I'm definitely missing bills. I definitely got mail."

USPS: "There's nothing here. The carrier has delivered what he had."

Me: "I am not messing around here. I had sensitive information coming last week and I've had to change account numbers to protect my finances."

USPS: "So you're missing one piece of mail?"

Me: "No, I'm missing like 20 pieces of mail. Five or six of them were bills. But who knows what else. I could have been called for jury duty and I have no idea! How can you just lose all this mail? I find the whole thing disconcerting."

USPS: "There's nothing here. You probably just didn't get any mail. I can look again and talk to the carrier and get back to you."

Me: "You've talked to the carrier over and over again. This is ridiculous. I can't believe that someone stalked my mailbox waiting for the perfect time to steal all of my mail, so the obvious assumption here is that it's lost. How do we find it?"

USPS: "You just probably didn't get any mail."

Me: "OK. So how do I file a claim for stolen mail. That's a federal offense and since you say you haven't misplaced it, that someone stole it is the only alternative."

USPS: "Call the police."

Me: "Ok."

USPS: Hangs up.

So I become enraged and post to social media, where I receive many suggestions for contacting the Postal Inspection unit, the postmaster, etc. I still think "Hey, maybe it came today."

I go home and I have five pieces of mail. Three are junk. They're all recent.

Mailgate Day Five: Thursday, October 1, 2015

As a last-ditch effort to save myself from the hassle of talking to the Postal Inspection people, I send the following email to the postal service professional in my area who "serves as a liaison between customer and field operations to investigate and resolve customer service issues."

"I placed a vacation hold on my mail from Sept. 19 through Sept. 26 and never received my accumulated mail. I've filed a complaint with USPS customer service, and have called my local post office four times. I continue to receive the same response from the <local post office> -- "We've checked the hold mail bin and there's nothing there. We checked with the carrier and you should have received it. If you didn't get it, maybe you didn't receive any mail during that period." This is ridiculous. I've never gone more than one day without receiving mail. The call always ends badly with the person I'm speaking to frustrated and angry at me. In my most recent phone call of September 30, I requested information on how to file a stolen mail claim and they told me to call the police before abruptly hanging up.

Sadly, during the time I was away, I expected to receive a few sensitive items. Yes, it was bad timing. But I trusted the Post Office to hold my mail and deliver it. Now I have to change numerous account numbers to ensure that my finances and identity remain secure.

Frankly, this is infuriating. I don't understand why the post office continues to doubt me when I claim that I did not receive my accumulated mail. I'm contacting you as a last resort to investigate this issue before I call the Postal Inspection Service. I've had an increasing amount of trouble with my carrier leaving packages in the rain and damaging mail as it's shoved into my mailbox. But this is the last straw. I will not sit idly by and accept sub-par delivery and terrible customer service. I hope that you can investigate this issue or provide the appropriate contact for getting to the bottom of this.

My address is X, and my confirmation number for my mail hold is Y."

The moral of the story is easy, folks. Have a neighbor get your mail in exchange for saltwater taffy. Everyone wins!