How do you get a Mailman to Follow the Rules?

[TGS]

My wife has talked with the Postmaster multiple times now and nothing changes.

It's entirely possible that the Postmaster is just giving you guys the run around because he doesn't want to deal with it.

When your wife submitted the package, did she submit a doctor's note affirming your mother's disability? I thought you must have it in writing from the doctor. If you guys didn't have that, I'm guessing the post office trashed your request and is just telling you, "Yeah sure, everything's fine"....because that's the USPS way. The internet is brimming with news stories of this exact thing happening.

I would say to call the hotline for the OIG, who should still be able to refer you to the Office of Consumer Advocacy if they feel the case lacks merit. I say call the OIG just because the chance is slim, but there is in fact a chance they might have something going on where they might want to hear from you. Remember that federal OIGs don't just conduct criminal investigations, but employee misconduct investigations as well. OIGs are split into several different divisions, and only one is criminal investigations. Just manage your expectations, as The French mentioned...

In the meantime, move into the 21st century and abandon the archaic practice of receiving and paying bills via mail.

[trailrunner]

We've had some great mail carriers, some not so great ones, and some that are just odd. Whenever we've complained to the post office, we get the feeling like they don't care, even if they half-heartedly say that they will look into it. When my mom's health started to decline, it was a hassle dealing with her mail, but fortunately she had set up all of her bills to be automatically paid electronically.

One of my wife's good friends from high school worked in the postal service in Los Angeles her entire career. She was pretty sharp, and rose to be some sort of mid-level manager, but she absolutely hated the job because she was trying to manage unmanageable people. She retired as soon as she was eligible, at 55, I think.

[Cookie Monster]

I think it would be a lot of effort and emotion.

Move anything important to online.

If I could opt for not getting any mail again ever, I'd do it.

[JohnO]

It's entirely possible that the Postmaster is just giving you guys the run around because he doesn't want to deal with it.

When your wife submitted the package, did she submit a doctor's note affirming your mother's disability?

All required paperwork was filed including a letter from a M.D..

I keep telling my wife to move everything to online or have the mail forwarded to our house. She is resistant and is now digging her feet in and wants a fight. Whe she gets going Watch Out! Run for Cover!

[Jim Watson]

A different agency, different era, but...

My Mother worked at the regional Social Security office in the 1960s.
She said that any dispute sent to a Representative was forwarded to the SS office as a "yellow dog" and the file was hand carried through the department until resolved. Usually in favor of the citizen.

So let her go to the top.

[vcdgrips]

In the meantime/as an addendum, consider Informed Delivery from USPS.

I have taken to using "informed delivery" on mail going into my mom's house. It is about an 80-90% solution- I get a a scan and email to me on a near daily basis re what is supposed to be delivered within 24 hours of the email.

It took about 2 weeks to get set up and working but I like it so far. FWIW.

[Borderland]

Our mailbox is 1000' from our house. It's a nice walk when the weather isn't too bad. We have informed delivery so some days I just look to see if there might be something important there and I make sure to get it. Otherwise it may be in my MB a few days. We pay all of our bills online and get notification's of payment due online also. We have so much mail theft here on this rural route I don't trust anything important to the carrier. Anything that gets mailed goes to the drop box at the PO 12 miles away. I talked to a deputy awhile back. He said druggies hit the mail frequently looking for info to steal ID.

My MIL is 91 and my wife pays her bills electronically. My BIL manages her bank account and investments and my SIL, who lives nearby, takes care of her day to day needs. We're about 2 hours away from where my MIL lives.

[blues]

Our mailbox is 1000' from our house. It's a nice walk when the weather isn't too bad. We have informed delivery so some days I just look to see if there might be something important there and I make sure to get it. Otherwise it may be in my MB a few days. We pay all of our bills online and get notification's of payment due online also.

Our mailbox is at least double the distance from the house, but sadly, it's not my property I have to traverse to get to it.

We also use Informed Delivery and it has saved me some miserable walks when there was nothing but junk awaiting...or the twice weekly local paper.

(But for the 15 years before I got Informed Delivery, unlike the post office, I'd trudge down...rain, snow, or darkness of night...as I wouldn't start the truck to simply go check the mail.)

We get more misdirected mail as an issue, than theft. I don't know why it's so hard to put the right mail in the right box, but I guess it can be.

[TGS]

A different agency, different era, but...

My Mother worked at the regional Social Security office in the 1960s.
She said that any dispute sent to a Representative was forwarded to the SS office as a "yellow dog" and the file was hand carried through the department until resolved. Usually in favor of the citizen.

So let her go to the top.

Definitely a different era.

I had a fraud subject who upon reaching working age had been issued the same SSN as another guy born on the same date, with the same name, and same parent's names, in the same city. When Guy #2 went in with his parents at the ripe old age of 14 to get his SSN to start working (only 3 weeks after Guy #1 got his card), the SSA thought Guy #1 and Guy #2 were the same person and so they just gave him the same number and a replacement card thinking he had lost his from 3 weeks ago. When I entered this equation, Guy #1 had just gotten out of jail after 30 years for murder-for-hire and tried getting a driver's license, which triggered everything. I had the dubious honor of being the person to tell guy #2 why he could never pass a background check and get a decent job his entire life.....

Since the workers at the local SSA office couldn't give a flying fuck about a mistake they made 45 years ago, it took both an SSA-OIG agent and I raising hell with the local SSA office to get these poor guys' lives unfucked.....not that either one wasn't permanently fucked anyway. What's worse is that the person who was issued the number first gets to keep the number.....so ex-con who never had a loan, credit card, or even a driver's license and kept the number....while the guy who actually had some sort of credit history built up had to start all over and change all of his accounts.

@HCM , fun fact, the murder for hire happened right across the corner from the Varick St federal building that you might be familiar with . I met him on the street to bring him in and do the 1st interview. Wasn't 5 minutes in to the interview that he explained why he was looking around so morbidly, looking lost on the street.

[blues]

@TGS

Ah, Varick St. Brings back memories. Years ago, NYPD also had an intel division there where we would go to check files. I can't remember if that later moved to 1PP or not.