My daughter continually has random first class mail returned to sender. This has happened about 10 times over the last several months. Her bank, 2 credit card companies, mortgage company and her 401K provider have all had mail returned. Maybe others also. She finds out about it when she gets another letter or an email from them saying "have you moved?"

She has talked to the Post Office many times. We are in a city of 60,000 people so its not a little backwater PO. She is about to come unglued over this. She has signed up for some program with the Post Office that scans her mail and emails her a picture of every 1st class letter. Last week she had a greeting card from someone in the next town over. She got an email with a picture of the envelope, the address was correct but just had her first name - not her last name. It showed as delivered, but she never got it. She does NOT get scans of the RETURNED mail though, which makes me think this is happening BEFORE the mail gets to the local Post Office. This is happening so regularly that something has got to be seriously wrong. Her 401k provider was talking about "abandoned property" in their letter, so there are probably more statements that have not gotten to her.

My daughter is single and has the same last name as ours and the same first initial as my wife. We are in the same city and on the same postal route. She lived with us for 4 months in 2017 while she was building a new house. After she moved in we had a forwarding issue that took months to resolve, but that was over in 2018. The Post Office likes to blame the carrier, saying that he gets confused because she and my wife have the same last name and first initial! What a crock. Like the carriers memorize the address of every "Smith" and "Jones" in a city of 60,000. Besides, we have had multiple carriers since then. And the carrier shouldn't look at the name on the letter, just the address.

Anybody with knowledge of the PO inner workings? What can she do? Who is next up the food chain? The Postmaster must have a boss somewhere. Do we contact the Post Office Inspector General? Seems like they are more fraud than mis-delivery issues. Thanks for any advice!

Bite the bullet and get a PO Box.

I'm not affiliated with the USPS...

If the "Informed Delivery" service scan for mail doesn't include mail that's returned, it sounds a LOT like a regional sorting problem.

Time for a PO box at a 3rd party.

It has been 5 years since i moved from ct. We still get ct junk mail. What we have not ever received is any of our last 3 months of forwarded mail from ct.

6 months after we moved, one of the mail sorters in ct was caught dumping mail in the trash. I am betting that is where my stuff went.

The other thing she should do is pull a credit report, see if someone is trying to spoof her name using a new address.

“the carrier shouldn't look at the name on the letter, just the address.”


Wrong. Most experienced letter carriers case mail by name rather than by number. There could be a neighborhood named “The Armpit” with every street Armpit Trace, Armpit Court, Armpit Dr., Armpit Way, etc. with repeating street numbers. If a letter or package arrives for 222 Armpit then it gets returned unless the carrier recognizes the last name.

Most mail is machine read and sorted so a incomplete name or address will be automatically kicked back... such as the letter missing her last name.

Your daughter may have the misfortune of not having a regular mail carrier assigned to her route. It takes a while to learn a route.

A postal patron with delivery issues should speak with the mail carrier, then the delivery supervisor, then the postmaster/station branch manager. If not resolved, the postmaster’s boss is a MPO (manager of postal operations). Beyond that, try the USPS Inspectors and your Congressman. I had a patron write the PMG to attempt to get me fired.

I am sorry for her issues and hope my suggestions help resolve them.

I can’t help other than suggest going paperless on everything possible. I don’t get any important bills or statements in the mail anymore.

While you try to get that worked out she should also change to email delivery for every thing you listed plus anything else arriving by mail that's not a catalog. That will do away with any recurrence of the issue on important items.

I don't understand the fascination with still getting these things by snail mail. Not a single bill come through my mailbox, so I never have to worry about them getting lost in transit. For you Luddites who will caution that an email can get "lost" while that's true I've had that happen never in 10-15 years either.....

I've had very good luck using the post office,
I use them for 95% of what I ship out of my small FFL/SOT business,

I know the carrier that drops off at my shop, a very nice, yet frustrated guy, (frustrated by the folks he works for,

I also know maybe 1/2 of the folks in my post office , and have for years,

rarely have an issue, very rarely,


now having said that, my Wife's employer uses USPS for maybe less than 1% of what they send out,

law firm, they send out almost everything thru UPS,

why?

because about half of what they sent out would not arrive, and they had loads of issues with incoming mail,

they never got to the bottom of it, they just gave up and switched to UPS for all they can,

and yes, they do have a PO box now as well

not sure if it is due to the post office itself, since we have dropped of stuff at that office being shipped out as well w/o issues,

except once, my brother dropped off a box of Bullets (just the bullet, no loaded cartridges) we sold and that post office called and wanted us to pick them up since they were not legal to send thru the post office,

took 2 days, 4 phone calls, and a request for the postmaster to meet me at that office to explain why he did not know his own regulations before that package went on its way,

quote:

Your daughter may have the misfortune of not having a regular mail carrier assigned to her route. It takes a while to learn a route.

For a couple of years, I had one - an excellent mail carrier, IMO, who got a case of Beer from me each Christmas. A carrier who would deliver your mail even if the address was incomplete.

I guess he did too good a job on his route and was reassigned to help out the slugs who couldn't find their asses with both hands.

That sucks but all those bills could be paperless to an email.

quote:

We are in the same city and on the same postal route. She lived with us for 4 months in 2017 while she was building a new house. After she moved in we had a forwarding issue that took months to resolve, but that was over in 2018.

I wonder if there was an employee generated forward to try and resolve the 2017 issue that is now messing with, or messed something up with where she is currently living. That's a WAG.
Ask the carrier if they're sending anything back for her address, and if they are just tell them to leave anything and everything with that address on it (regardless of name), and you'll give back anything that's bogus. Which, in a newly constructed house, there shouldn't be any mail for Thelma, the old lady who died in 1994, but still gets shit for her deceased husband, who died in 1984, at the house they bought in 1954.
Or, it might be because it's a new construction/address, and it's being sent back as "No such number" before the route even gets it.
OR, it could be a barcode thing, probably related to it being a new address.

We’ve gotten diligent about using zip+4 codes. It seems to help.

She needs to meet the regular route carrier.

I have similar issues. Including tracking packages and see “delivery failed, notice left” when I was sitting on the porch when they claimed they tried to deliver on a regular basis. And of course there’s no notice since they didn’t show. It even happened today with a scope I purchased from esdunbar, probably the 15th time this year. But I don’t have the same carrier, they seem to change every few weeks.

A simple solution would be to put a sticker inside her mailbox, taped over with clear tape to prevent water damage, with her full name and address. JANE DOE. 123 MAIN STREET.

If she lives on an Aux route, or a route that does not have a regular carrier, that could be an issue.

And yes, regular carriers go by names and not addresses. It is much more efficient and accurate, but that can take awhile to be proficient in that regard.

You could also ask you local PostMaster to have a "delivery notification card" assigned to her route. Basically saying, "Jane Doe lives at 123 Main Street, please deliver all mail to that address in her name". We do the same thing with dog warning cards to warn carriers unfamiliar with the route about potential dog hazards. You could basically ask to have ALL mail delivered to her house, and then your daughter could go through it, and anything that isn't hers, just annotate "Return to sender", and put it in the outgoing mail the next day. Do not have her send anything back with her name on it, even if it is something she doesn't want. I have had people who "pick and choose" the mail they want, and I basically tell them you will get everything that is addressed to your home in your name, or nothing at all. Mailman don't get to pick and choose what to deliver, and as other people have said, mailman have been caught throwing things away in dumpsters, etc...

Ask the PostMaster to look into any forwarding information for her address. Change of addresses have an expiration date, but if for whatever reason, she resubmitted it, it could still be in effect.

Any mail returned by the carrier should have a hand written annotation on why it wasn't delivered. Whether it be unknown, bad address, no such number, etc... It would look something like "UNK 2472, ANK 2472, NSN 2472. Then it should have a yellow sticker, that may or may not be legible, with a brief typed explanation of why it was being returned. The 4 numbers are the individual route number of the carrier. We have to do that with everything we send back.

You could also just ask to have your mail held at the Post Office for a few weeks, and see what that turns up. Then ask to have all mail delivered on a certain date, or she could pick it up. This would probably be the easiest, and first thing to do.

Lately, I've been seeing stimulus checks for people I have never heard of, and I have been on my current route for 5 years. Those get sent back with and address unknown, "ANK 2472". They can take it up with the IRS.

I agree with the guys suggesting a PO box at either the post office or a third party. At least as a way to test and see if that helps. What a pain in the ass, though, and I'm sorry she's going through it.

All mail is run through automation machines at the local Processing and Distribution facility. These machines cancel the stamp and determine if it's local or outgoing, then they further sort it for town and local route.

This is where the "informed delivery" scans that get emailed to you come from. If the machines can't determine the address string, it'll get kicked back before that point.

I'd try to get the contact info for the P&DC from your local office and make an inquiry there. It may be that they are having issues with the sort machines and her address is wrongly being flagged for some reason.

We had a package delivered to our house because we get a lot of packages and our house is #6.

The street was different and our names were different but this guy just thought it was us because of the "6" and we get packages.

quote:

I agree with the guys suggesting a PO box at either the post office or a third party. At least as a way to test and see if that helps. What a pain in the ass, though, and I'm sorry she's going through it.

^^^^^^^^^^^^
The PO box is not particularly expensive, my mail is usually dry and is secure. I have had a PO box for 40 years. I still get mail at my house and office, but the important stuff goes to the box. It is easier than trying to solve the problem. I can access it 24 hours per day. It is less than a mile from my office and home. Vtail has a Box at UPS and it works for him. The USPS is a complicated byzantine organization. Getting to know your carrier helps, but you have no control if the carrier get reassigned or not. Too many variables and things to go wrong.