Re: Symposium Party & Mystery Mailer

**"Duane Campbell" d*@chilitech.net**

----- Original Message ----- 

>Mine was open too with a nice note from the postal station that they had 
>received it open and with no contents.

Just when I thought I had calmed down, this has my blood pressure peaking 
again. Nice note, indeed. The USPS is very good at sending nice form-letter 
notes. Beyond that their attitude is ... well, this is a family list, but it 
involves a short transitive verb and a pronoun predicate.

RANT WARNING! --- RANT WARNING! -- RANT WARNING!

A couple of years ago my daughter sent me a pair of foo-dogs from a military 
post office in Japan. Some time later I received the remains of an empty 
package separately wrapped by the USPS with a nice note from the processing 
center at JFK. No signature, no address, no contact information. It was the 
beginning of a six month nightmare. In short, the USPS doesn't want to be 
bothered. They go out of their way to avoid your getting in touch with 
anybody who can do or tell you anything. In desperation, after weeks of 
stonewalling, I actually went to my Congressman. He got back a boilerplate 
letter from the PO, which he sent on to me. It is the only government or 
business letterhead that I have ever seen that did not have a telephone 
number. Two letters I sent to the USPS congressional liasson went 
unanswered. Multiple letters to the USPS Inspector General and the 
Postmaster himself all went unanswered.

Because this came from overseas, there was considerable information on the 
package wrapping itself, and I could pinpoint exactly where the contents 
disappeared. After considerable effort I was able to contact the USPS office 
that handles missing contents. (I mean CONSIDERABLE.) I was told I could 
file a five page report, but that they would probably not find the stuff, 
and further that I was not entitled to any information on the investigation. 
Further, they indicated they would not actually look in the location where 
the contents disappeared. They were required by regulation to check only the 
dead letter warehouse at the originating area and the destination area. 
Since they had gone missing in New York, there was no way the contents could 
be in either place. By now I actually had digital photographs of what my 
daughter had sent me, but no one was at all interested in seeing them.

After six months of effort, I had to give up. The warehouses only keep 
things for 90 days and then auction them. I really doubt they were 
auctioned. They were stolen by employees at the USPS center at JFK. But no 
one at the postal service gave a damn.

I pass this on partly to relieve my bile and partly as a cautionary tale. If 
you have something to send, use FedEx or UPS.

D 

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