Package Potentially Stolen/What to do

I had meds coming for the VA a few weeks ago and the post office said the had delivered them. i kept looking in my pobox wating for them to put there yellow card or large locker key in my box so i could pick them up.

After a week i checked at the counter and found they still had them in back and for some reason never notified me.

I am unfortunately on a highly unreliable route here, with few options. I'm in a fair size city, but unfortunately my house is on a major road so the mailboxes are on people's houses, not at the curb. So my route gets walked, not driven. For whatever reason, the local office has decided that my route (and a few others I'd imagine) are "non-permanent routes". IE I have no fixed mailman. My route is on a board and is taken by whomever wants/needs the hours or is still in training. That means I get a LOT of noobs. (and my route's been this way for decades)

And think of all the mail delivery problems that they will respond with "have you tried talking with your carrier?" I get that all the time. WHICH ONE? I have a different one almost every day!

So yeah. Lost mail. Mail delivered to my next door neighbors. Mail delivered to the same address on nearby streets. Get neighbor's mail all the time. Last week I received what looks like a bank statement and an IRA investment report for my next door neighbor. Those are sitting on my passenger seat waiting for me to find time to pay (ANOTHER) personal visit to the post office to give them yet another piece of my mind.

I receive about 2/3 of my utility, cable, and insurance bills, the rest never arrive. They are all on auto-pay now thankfully. I never received my new insurance card this spring, I have had to request another one, delivered TO my workplace this time.

As for packages. Good grief. I order stuff online frequently, and the bulk of it comes mail-china, where they slowboat it to the states and then let the post office have it. (UPS or fedex offers that too for cheaper than to-house delivery) Anyway, the chaos of the pickup slips astounds the mind. Just when you think they can't be any dumber, they are. I've had carriers deliver a signed pickup note instead of the package. I've had them take the signed pickup slip and apparently eat it. (disappered) I finally put a STOP DELIVERY on parcels to my door, I just pick up everything at the post office. A week later, I kid you not, they delivered the stop delivery note. We all got a somewhat uncomfortable laugh when I brought that to the post office for a "WTF" meeting.

A week before that, I had a $75 ebay purchase ding my phone mail while I was at work, indicating a delivery. Get home, nothing. Now by this time I've been to the post office 1/2 dozen times with VIDEO of the idiots delivering my mail, things like delivering the signed pickup note and puting the package back in their pack. So they don't usually try the "blame game" on me anymore because I frequently have proof. But over the phone to the 800 usps number they were like "we delivered it, the carrier says he left it at your door. after it's delivered it's no longer our responsibility. you may have to report it stolen." They didn't have that tune when I called the local postmaster though. I had video of nobody coming to my mailbox that day.

Next afternoon I get a call from the postmaster, my package is at the depot awaiting my pickup. Where was it? Well, another new guy on the route (surprise...) swears up and down he left it at my door. The postmaster drives him to my house and they look at the door and he says "hmmm that doesn't look like the door I left the package at". Wonderful. So they spent the next 1/2 hr going to the same addresses on nearby streets, and finally found my package. Apparently that's a common problem for new carriers.

Moral of the Story: they can screw up, lose your package, and it is ABSOLUTELY not their fault. Unless the postmaster goes out of his way to try to help you, you are screwed. They will simply claim they did their job, without any proof, and will absolve themselves of any responsibility. Unless you can prove they didn't deliver the package, it's your loss, the burdon of proof is on YOU. If that new postman hadn't spoke up, if the postmaster hadn't gone way out of his way to help me, if I hadn't had the video that got the ball rolling, I'd have been out $75.

And they wonder why they're losing business.

Do you have a front office? If you do, check there. They may have delivered it there for security reasons.

check your leasing office. that is where most of my packages go

I was sitting at my computer one Saturday morning and was monitoring my e-bay account. All of a sudden the e-bay or postal confirmation came thru for a package that was supposed to be delivered by post office and left in my mailbox about 35 minutes prior. The confirmation said the package had been "returned to sender-unable to deliver". Fortunately I was able to call the post office immediately and they got in touch with the carrier (by cell phone, I think) who re-delivered it that day. Otherwise it would have been sent back to the sender and I would have had to pay to have it shipped again. Don't know if it was an honest mistake or carrier did it on purpose. I think I remember the postmaster said that the carrier keyed the information into his hand-held computer incorrectly.

I talked to USPS, they did exactly what bambinod said they would do. "We don't know. It's not our fault. You probably wrote the information down wrong." No, man. I have my address. RIGHT HERE on the receipt. This is where it was supposed to be delivered. It's not here. What the hell?

No help. I'm trying not to be all stressed that someone opened the package. I'm really paranoid about being blackmailed, but I suppose that's a really extreme fear. More likely, if it went to the wrong address, someone got it, discarded it or gave it back to USPS. I don't know... still trying to be hopeful.

Never using USPS again, though.

I live in apartment complex and had same problem twice:

One time they delivered it to the wrong building so I went building to building till I found it.
Another time left it outside at the back of the building.

Saying that it is unlikely someone stole it sine it is a serious crime and if someone did get it they will never say anything about it so just pretend like it never happened.

Does your apartment have a office on site?? Maybe they took it there, when i lived with my dad thats what they did

Any update? I had some packages get misdelivered and or possibly stolen when i lived in an apartment, so I know how it is. Fortunately though, none were abdl related. Good luck, hope the box shows up unopened.

I don't know how things work in the US, but I imagine the law is vaguely similar... In the UK, when you place an online order, your contract is with the vendor. It's up to the vendor to make sure you get your goods. If your parcel is lost in transit, it's the seller (not the courier) who is legally repsonsible.

It's often easier (in the first instance) to check with the courier to see if they made a mistake and can locate and deliver your parcel. But if they can't help (or you don't want to contact them directly), you need to go back to the vendor and ask them to either re-ship your order or issue you with a full refund.

The vendor will have a contract with the courier. So, having given you the refund/replacement, they will then want to take the matter up with the courier and claim on the insurance so that they aren't out of pocket. But that's up to the vendor to sort out. All you need to do is make sure that the vendor fulfils their legal obligation to deliver the goods you asked for (or gives you a refund).

Hope that helps...

tiny said:

It's often easier (in the first instance) to check with the courier to see if they made a mistake and can locate and deliver your parcel. But if they can't help (or you don't want to contact them directly), you need to go back to the vendor and ask them to either re-ship your order or issue you with a full refund.\

Click to expand...

Yep I've gotten that particular run-around a few times, with ups, fedex, and usps. The shipper paid them to deliver, not you, so legally you don't have a case against them, that's between the shipper and the shipping co. I think they like that because it provides them with a level of "insulation" in the situation where they can try to play you against the shipper for the blame-game. That also gives them major insulation in the form of distance, between themselves and the selller. You're right there in their face at their window, but they can just blow off the shipper over the phone.

That frequently means the shipper gets stuck with a customer that's upset for not having received their package, and the USPS claiming they delivered it so it's not their problem anymore. If it's something smaller it's usually just not worth it to fight and they'll reship it. When it's expensive ($70+ or so) is where the shipper has to make a decision, tell the customer "hey look the usps says they delivered it, so either someone stole it off your porch while you were at work, or you're trying to scam me into shipping you a second one for free", or to buckle and just ship you another one and eat the loss.

Anything over the usps's default insurance amount ($150?) should really be shipped requiring a signature. So it's those $70-150 items that fall into the gap and cause most of the headaches for the consumer.