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Just wondering if any other forum members have had issues recently with USPS delivery. In November, I sent a USPS postal money order to Ray at RTG and it never arrived. I went to the post office to initiate a loss/stolen mail inquiry and was told it would cost me $20.14 to do it but I had no other choice. I was a bit surprised that they were charging me to locate something they lost. Informed delivery showed it made it to Dallas and that was the last update. Ray was very understanding and two months later I received a refund from USPS.
I then sent another member here a USPS money order from Maine to Ohio Feb 14 for an item and was advised 3 days to reach recipient. I didn’t want to take any chances this time and paid $5.58 extra for certified mail with tracking. It’s now been five weeks and the last update was almost a month ago February 22 reached Cleveland Ohio. I contacted USPS and a few days later received a call from the Ohio post office where it should’ve made it to and they stated that it never got to them and never made it past Cleveland. I was advised to initiate an inquiry for $20.14 and wait 60 days for their investigation before sending me a refund.
Frustrating is an understatement!
Rick C
ChatGPT said:
What to Do If Your Certified Mail is Lost:
- Check the Tracking Status
- Go to USPS Tracking
- Enter your Certified Mail tracking number (found on your receipt).
- Contact USPS Customer Service (Free)
- Call 1-800-ASK-USPS (1-800-275-8777)
- Visit your local post office and ask them to help locate it.
- File a Missing Mail Search Request (Free)
- If your Certified Mail is stuck in transit or missing, submit a Missing Mail Search Request at: Missing Mail Search.
- This service is free, and USPS will attempt to locate your mail.
- Request a Refund (If Applicable)
- If USPS officially declares the mail lost and you paid for Certified Mail with Return Receipt, you may be eligible for a refund of those services.
Important Notes:
[Image Can Not Be Found] You should never be asked to pay extra just to track Certified Mail.
[Image Can Not Be Found] Certified Mail does not include insurance. If you need reimbursement for lost valuables, you must have purchased additional insurance when mailing it.
Anthony
Anthony said
If you pay to send a letter certified mail with the USPS, and it gets lost, do you have to pay again for them to track it?
The clerk at the Ohio P.O told me another $20.14 to find the certified mail they lost…again!
Hopefully the information above is correct regarding “certified mail” that gets lost/stolen and the postal agent won’t charge the $20.14 this time where it’s certified mail.
Rick C
What’s wrong with a personal check instead, between two trustworthy individuals? I despise money orders because of fees involved, plus, if you decide to cash one at the post office, you need enough cash in the drawer to cover it, based on previous cash sales that day. Pointless to show up at 9 am to cash a money order.
November 7, 2015
Offline
Rick-
Just to be clear, do the refund the inquiry fee? I haven’t used certified mail in awhile but they lost some papers I sent to my accountant for about a year. Tracking with the provided numbers was amusing but frustrating, the envelope went back and forth between two facilities dozens of times.
Mike
TXGunNut said
Rick-Just to be clear, do the refund the inquiry fee? I haven’t used certified mail in awhile but they lost some papers I sent to my accountant for about a year. Tracking with the provided numbers was amusing but frustrating, the envelope went back and forth between two facilities dozens of times.
Mike
Mike, no I got the money order amount only. Your situation doesn’t surprise me. Nothing would surprise me with them now.
Rick C
November 5, 2014
Offline
Hi Mike-
I’ve had a couple USPS “Express Mail” parcel deliveries delayed recently.
One, back in January, was a rifle stock coming from the West Coast. It made it to Newark NJ, where the tracking then said “Weather Delay”. This at a time when there was no severe weather on the East Coast. Then nothing… After the required 7 business days I filed an on-line missing mail request with USPS (there’s no charge for this). Oddly, within 24 hours the package started moving again and was delivered the next day. Two weeks after the scheduled delivery date. While USPS never sent an update to my search request, I suspect somebody did go look for it…
That one might (???) have been related to a postal strike in Canada that got the system backed up for a while??? I asked my local Postmaster if he’d noticed any problems recently with parcel deliveries and he said “Only if there’s a Weather Delay”… 
Must be the default USPS code words for “We lost it”…
Second one was just this week, but less dramatic. A small parcel coming from PA got to the distribution center in PA and then nothing for about 5 days. It did eventually start moving again on its own, before the necessary time elapsed for a missing mail search, and arrived only a few days late.
Still… I think there’s something going on…
Lou
WACA 9519; Studying Pre-64 Model 70 Winchesters
The St. Louis system is a black hole for things that are traceable within the USPS to disappear in. If any info is forthcoming, the parcel goes from one facility (‘onward routed to regional facility’) to the other (package sorting facility or such) for days on end. Then if I am lucky it magically appears at my local facility as out for delivery. What happened for it to bypass the Springfield facility? It didn’t but Springfield doesn’t always log items in or out. I have had parcels bouncy back and forth in St. Louis for days or a week and go way past expected delivery times. The USPS as it currently is organized and run is but a shadow of the old Post Office, in my opinion. Tim
I’ve had problems too. I go to the Post Office and ask for the Manager. We argue for awhile and then about 2 days later my medications show up at my door. I no longer have my prescriptions mailed.
Sorry to have to admit to this but one of my brothers worked as a Post Man in the Navy and private life. He is a crook and so are a lot of other postal workers. Theft and laziness is prevalent. He has told me how things really work. The Postal Service needs to be privatized. Have you ever heard the term “good enough for government work”?
Not to just pick on the USPS but Fed Ex lost a package for about a month or more. It went from Oregon to California back and forth at least 3 times. We finally found it at a Walgreens. There are 3 in the city where I live so I went to the closest one to my house and there it was. This package had my name and address on it in 3 places. Lazy and no one cares.
Chuck said
I’ve had problems too. I go to the Post Office and ask for the Manager. We argue for awhile and then about 2 days later my medications show up at my door. I no longer have my prescriptions mailed.Sorry to have to admit to this but one of my brothers worked as a Post Man in the Navy and private life. He is a crook and so are a lot of other postal workers. Theft and laziness is prevalent. He has told me how things really work. The Postal Service needs to be privatized. Have you ever heard the term “good enough for government work”?
Not to just pick on the USPS but Fed Ex lost a package for about a month or more. It went from Oregon to California back and forth at least 3 times. We finally found it at a Walgreens. There are 3 in the city where I live so I went to the closest one to my house and there it was. This package had my name and address on it in 3 places. Lazy and no one cares.
I have to agree Chuck.
In Canada, the biggest drug trafficking transport is Canada Post unfortunately and that’s a fact. It’s not a slight towards the employees, but a few are involved. The other problem with Canada Post is it’s run a $3 billion deficit since 2018. Privatizing has been a common subject. The good part is I’ve never once lost or had firearm go missing after hundreds of transactions and Canada Post is half the price of the courier services UPS/FEDEX etc here when shipping firearms.
Rick C
Rick C said
Anthony said
If you pay to send a letter certified mail with the USPS, and it gets lost, do you have to pay again for them to track it?
The clerk at the Ohio P.O told me another $20.14 to find the certified mail they lost…again!
Hopefully the information above is correct regarding “certified mail” that gets lost/stolen and the postal agent won’t charge the $20.14 this time where it’s certified mail.
Important Notes:
You should never be asked to pay extra just to track Certified Mail.
Certified Mail does not include insurance. If you need reimbursement for lost valuables, you must have purchased additional insurance when mailing it.
I don’t understand why the USPS can’t do what Rick paid for, and help him out, and mainly do their job! He already purchased the Certified check, with a tracking number, and like Chuck said, their attitude is,”Good enough for Government work”, as they really don’t care. To ask for more money to track and find the check, is ridiculous! IMO!
I have to agree with the above statements, as far as the USPS, needing to be privatized!
Anthony
Certified mail slows up the mailing process. I shipped a gun Certified and it doubled the shipping time. Every person that handles that package has to sign for it and when its left unattended it has to be in the lockup. So theoretically you would go to the last person on the list that had it and ask what you did with it but I would assume the USPS will a excuse for that. I also have heard in busy mail centers they don’t have enough room for all the mail inside so they store it in trailers outside where it could easily be forgotten about.
Bob
WACA Life Member--- NRA Life Member---- Cody Firearms member since 1991 Researching the Winchester 1873's
Email: [email protected]
1873man said
Certified mail slows up the mailing process. I shipped a gun Certified and it doubled the shipping time. Every person that handles that package has to sign for it and when its left unattended it has to be in the lockup. So theoretically you would go to the last person on the list that had it and ask what you did with it but I would assume the USPS will a excuse for that. I also have heard in busy mail centers they don’t have enough room for all the mail inside so they store it in trailers outside where it could easily be forgotten about.Bob
That makes sense Bob. Maybe regular letter mail is the way to go, but once bitten, twice shy, as my case with the money order sent to RTG that took almost 3 months to complete.
Rick C
I might be off subject but I have learned the hard way not to send a bank money order thru the mail. The USPS looses a lot of small paper envelopes, they stick to or blow out of totes or slide inside junk mail,. Who knows where they go but about 60 days later they show up.
I bought an expensive gun at RIA and sent payment, bank money order in a regular paper envelope. Tracking stalled in Iowa, RIA called asking for funds. I went to the post office they said it could take 60 days. My bank could not cancel payment on bank money order, money already withdrawn from my account, cannot cancel payment for 60 days. I had to withdraw the money again and drove to RIA.
After a very nervous 60 days my beat up envelope with wheel tracks on it showed up. I took it to the bank and they put the money back in my account. If it wouldn’t have showed up I could have declared it lost at that time and if it wasn’t cashed got my money back.
Send a personal check in a larger padded envelope. Less likely to get lost and if lost you can cancel payment anytime until cashed. T/R
Unclaimed?
Nowhere to be found for a month, never delivered, not at the post office. Bedford OH isn’t NYC. Brutal.
Rick C
Good suggestion, actually. When I retired I had a boxload of Priority Mail flat rate cardboard envelopes, which I’ve always found to be sturdy. That’s what I’ve always used when there’s a negotiable instrument or important document being sent. I also tape the ends of the flap. I’ve never had a problem.
The Rules of Procedure of most jurisdictions have long since been updated to allow service of notice by other methods than Certified Mail Return Receipt Requested, with the return green card taped to the envelope.But, back in the day, any law office was awash with the damned things, both coming and going, because we had to.
So, long ago I had to learn the difference between Certified Mail, the chief purpose of which is to have courtroom proof the S.O.B got it no matter how hard he swears he didn’t; and Registered Mail, which aims to do the same but, moreover, makes considerable effort to keep the package safe from pilferage and theft. Signature chain of custody all along the route, segregated and locked storage. It includes insurance.
Registered Mail used to be a bargain but it isn’t now. And it is REALLY slow. I shipped a Model 12 to Alaska that way and it flat disappeared for two weeks and wound up in Dogbreath, AK Population 8. Stayed there awhile longer while they tried to figure out what to do with it. It eventually got delivered but I got 5 years older in the process.
I’ve taken to using Pirateship.com, which let’s me print the outbound postage and address/tracking label for both UPS and USPS and let’s me buy private insurance when I do it. You get a commercial rate discount, too. I’m not an FFL so, courtesy of Brandon & Co. can’t use UPS for firearms anymore. But you can print media rate USPS postage, which is good for manuscripts.
- Bill
WACA # 65205; life member, NRA; member, TGCA; member, TSRA; amateur preservationist
"I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both, and I believe they both get paid in the end, but the fools first." -- David Balfour, narrator and protagonist of the novel, Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
mrcvs said
What’s wrong with a personal check instead, between two trustworthy individuals? I despise money orders because of fees involved, plus, if you decide to cash one at the post office, you need enough cash in the drawer to cover it, based on previous cash sales that day. Pointless to show up at 9 am to cash a money order.
The fly in the ointment is “trustworthy.” The joke is that lawyers have the imagination of a child in the dark but experience is a great teacher and any of them in practice for just a few years have seen with their own eyes the full range of weaknesses against which mortal men must struggle. Some struggle harder than others.
Personal checks for large sums of money have become a VERY BAD IDEA because of well-meaning but dangerous bank privacy laws and banking practices.
1. You cannot ask the drawee bank to tell you whether the check you’ve deposited several business days ago has cleared the drawer’s account. They cannot disclose it and won’t.
2. If you take the check directly to the drawee bank and ask them to cash it, they won’t unless you are also an account holder there. If you are and they cash it and the check is fraudulent, they will immediately charge back to your account, offset your balance and if that’s not enough, demand payment for the difference, for which you are liable because you endorsed it.
3. The credit you get when you deposit somebody’s personal check into your own bank account is a PROVISIONAL credit. Ordinarily, the Fed clears or returns these checks between banks rapidly. If there are sufficient funds in the drawer’s account, the drawee bank debits the check and that’s that. The depository bank (yours) doesn’t know or learn the check was successfully debited. It assumes that is so merely because time has passed and, if it originally had put a hold on some or all of those provisional funds in your account, releases the hold. BUT IS NOT THE WHOLE BALLGAME.
4. If the check you took in payment for your pair of matched Purdeys was FORGED — written and signed by someone falsely representing himself as the owner or someone authorized to sign [“genuine or authorized signature” is a phrase] for the owner, that fact may not come to light for weeks.
5. By the time the account owner examines his account statement and sees the big debit for he knows not what, gets a look at the canceled check image and screams bloody murder to his banker, the fraudster and your Purdeys are long gone. The drawee bank charges back the fraudulent item to YOUR bank, which repays the drawee bank and slurps that amount from your account — or calls you in for a chat if your account balance couldn’t cover the whole backcharge.
6. The same thing can happen if the check is genuine but NSF. It just happens on a tighter schedule.
7. But, you say, I KNOW MY BUYER. He is solid and trustworthy.
- Maybe he is but his Significant Other has just, unbeknownst to him, cleaned his account out and run away with her riding instructor?
- Maybe he’s not as “solid” as you think and IRS has just served a seizure notice on his account over some unpaid employee payroll taxes and penalties?
- Maybe a group of his creditors has just filed a petition in involuntary bankruptcy and served the bank with some sort of injunctive relief?
- Or fifty other things he had no idea were going to happen to him.
To sum up: when you hand over a valuable, highly movable object to a buyer (or his evil clone) and take an ordinary bank check in payment, you have, for a sometimes unknowable time period, married the check’s account owner — his problems are your problems – to the extent of the money represented by the check.
My personal motto is:
IN GOD WE TRUST. EVERYBODY ELSE PAYS IN MACHINE TESTED CASH OR A POSTAL MONEY ORDER. Postal money orders can be forged but it is very difficult. Deposit them in your bank for immediate credit; don’t look to the P.O.for cash.
- Bill
WACA # 65205; life member, NRA; member, TGCA; member, TSRA; amateur preservationist
"I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both, and I believe they both get paid in the end, but the fools first." -- David Balfour, narrator and protagonist of the novel, Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson.
I bought an expensive old rifle scope and since I was not the sender Fed Ex wouldn’t even talk to me. I had to call the seller while in the Fed Ex office to have him initiate the search. Also while in the office the lady had me do something, I forget the details, that allowed her to give me a phone number that eventually helped me. She went out of her way to help me. I can’t tell you how many damaged packages have arrived at my house. One time it was a box of Lapua brass. These come in very strong plastic boxes but this one was in 2 pieces. Fortunately all the brass was still in the package.
Zebulon said
mrcvs said
What’s wrong with a personal check instead, between two trustworthy individuals? I despise money orders because of fees involved, plus, if you decide to cash one at the post office, you need enough cash in the drawer to cover it, based on previous cash sales that day. Pointless to show up at 9 am to cash a money order.
The fly in the ointment is “trustworthy.” The joke is that lawyers have the imagination of a child in the dark but experience is a great teacher and any of them in practice for just a few years have seen with their own eyes the full range of weaknesses against which mortal men must struggle. Some struggle harder than others.
Personal checks for large sums of money have become a VERY BAD IDEA because of well-meaning but dangerous bank privacy laws and banking practices.
1. You cannot ask the drawee bank to tell you whether the check you’ve deposited several business days ago has cleared the drawer’s account. They cannot disclose it and won’t.
2. If you take the check directly to the drawee bank and ask them to cash it, they won’t unless you are also an account holder there. If you are and they cash it and the check is fraudulent, they will immediately charge back to your account, offset your balance and if that’s not enough, demand payment for the difference, for which you are liable because you endorsed it.
3. The credit you get when you deposit somebody’s personal check into your own bank account is a PROVISIONAL credit. Ordinarily, the Fed clears or returns these checks between banks rapidly. If there are sufficient funds in the drawer’s account, the drawee bank debits the check and that’s that. The depository bank (yours) doesn’t know or learn the check was successfully debited. It assumes that is so merely because time has passed and, if it originally had put a hold on some or all of those provisional funds in your account, releases the hold. BUT IS NOT THE WHOLE BALLGAME.
4. If the check you took in payment for your pair of matched Purdeys was FORGED — written and signed by someone falsely representing himself as the owner or someone authorized to sign [“genuine or authorized signature” is a phrase] for the owner, that fact may not come to light for weeks.
5. By the time the account owner examines his account statement and sees the big debit for he knows not what, gets a look at the canceled check image and screams bloody murder to his banker, the fraudster and your Purdeys are long gone. The drawee bank charges back the fraudulent item to YOUR bank, which repays the drawee bank and slurps that amount from your account — or calls you in for a chat if your account balance couldn’t cover the whole backcharge.
6. The same thing can happen if the check is genuine but NSF. It just happens on a tighter schedule.
7. But, you say, I KNOW MY BUYER. He is solid and trustworthy.
- Maybe he is but his Significant Other has just, unbeknownst to him, cleaned his account out and run away with her riding instructor?
- Maybe he’s not as “solid” as you think and IRS has just served a seizure notice on his account over some unpaid employee payroll taxes and penalties?
- Maybe a group of his creditors has just filed a petition in involuntary bankruptcy and served the bank with some sort of injunctive relief?
- Or fifty other things he had no idea were going to happen to him.
To sum up: when you hand over a valuable, highly movable object to a buyer (or his evil clone) and take an ordinary bank check in payment, you have, for a sometimes unknowable time period, married the check’s account owner — his problems are your problems – to the extent of the money represented by the check.
My personal motto is:
IN GOD WE TRUST. EVERYBODY ELSE PAYS IN MACHINE TESTED CASH OR A POSTAL MONEY ORDER. Postal money orders can be forged but it is very difficult. Deposit them in your bank for immediate credit; don’t look to the P.O.for cash.
Good reply Bill. Your legal knowledge is an asset to all. That’s why I always send a postal money order.
Rick C
They caught one of them.
Bob
WACA Life Member--- NRA Life Member---- Cody Firearms member since 1991 Researching the Winchester 1873's
Email: [email protected]
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