USPS Mail Hold = lost mail?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who did you ask? Do you know which post office your mail carrier is at? Make sure you go to the right one and ask. It is probably there, but the back offices are not well organized. I would ask every day until it turns up.

This. Only the office that holds the mail knows it is there and the back area is a total chaotic mess. Go to the post office, ask for your mail and repeat. It is probably there, just pushed into a corner.

I just wanted to add that n. Arlington is tricky in that your closest post office may not be the one that has your carrier.

[Anonymous]

I had my mail held for nearly a month and now no one knows where it is. The mailman first claimed he was not working on the day it was supposed to be delivered and then retracted and said he stuffed it in the box. It is a locked box so I know it was not delivered.i have lots of financial papers that arrive by mail.
How do I know this isn't some kind of identity theft?

[Anonymous]

I just got back from the PO after a 2 week vacation. They can't find my HELD mail either. Told me to check in my mail box. Duh! That's the first place I checked when I got home yesterday and the mailbox was EMPTY. 14 days is a LOT of mail......HOW can it simply "disappear"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We always put our mail on hold AND ask a neighbor to check the mailbox, because typically, the post office ignores the hold and delivers the mail anyway. I learned my lesson years ago.

This. I also choose the "pick it up" option.

We often do long summer trips --3 weeks, etc. and I found these 2 things have resulted in nothing slipping through the cracks.

[Anonymous]

I always put it on hold, and have them deliver. I had an issue once, but they found it and I had to pick it up.

[Anonymous]

Old thread but apparently a common problem.

I have never had this particular problem (they always deliver on our return day), but I have had another issue where I had a package floating around that the PO couldn't find. It turns out the package was just sitting on the mail truck for several days. The best thing to do is communicate with your letter carrier to see what the deal is. They are human and they do sometimes miss a special handling request (even though they shouldn't).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We too have had problems with lost mail after a vacation hold, so we don't do it anymore.

+1

[Anonymous]

Weird. I've done this probably 10 times without incident.

[Anonymous]

I had this problem---my mail included a parking ticket that went up considerably since I never got the first notice---so now I ask a neighbor to grab my mail.

We live in Old Town, a neighbor in my building moved and they keep delivering her mail to an empty apartment---they even delivered her change of address forms there.

[Anonymous]

I'm presently trying to get my held mail from a postal station in Red Hook, Brooklyn. No one seems to know where it is. I checked at the post office and they say they don't have it, which means the mail carrier is delivering it. The mail carriers says they don't have it and I should go to the station in Red Hook and see if they have it. And around and around it goes.

I've done mail hold a few times before and sometimes it works fine. Other times it's totally messed up. Once I received my mail after a significant delay because my mail carrier said the held mail was on her desk and she kept forgetting to bring it every time she went out on her daily rounds. I guess the lesson is: don't do a mail hold unless you're willing to gamble on whether you will receive the mail late or possibly not at all. The USPS system is just too disorganized.

[Anonymous]

We are just going through this now. We’ve never had an issue before. We had our mail held for 10 days. It wasn’t delivered upon our return. We get one story after another. First it was she didn’t get the hold. All our mail was delivered. Then it was they thought we weren’t home so they brought what was delivered back to the post office. Then it was we delivered everything but bulk mail because we thought you forwarded your mail.

[Anonymous]

I just had my mail held for 10 days and had no problem. USPS left a big bin of mail on my porch the day I came back. and we wanr one help <a href = "https://www.uspostholdmail.com/"> does usps deliver on saturday </a>

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We always put our mail on hold AND ask a neighbor to check the mailbox, because typically, the post office ignores the hold and delivers the mail anyway. I learned my lesson years ago.

+1

[Anonymous]

I've had it both ways-- sometimes they deliver "the mail" after 2 weeks and there's less there than we get in 2 days, but most of the time it seems to work?

You can sign up to get pictures of your mail ("informed delivery") before it's delivered to you if you want-- maybe that would help?

One time we moved and they never delivered our mail and no matter how much I complained the guy on the phone insisted our forward was being processed until one day the people who lived in our old place dropped off our mail in a huge shopping bag (they found us on the forwarding labels). Think they did that because a certified letter canceling my car registration was in the latest batch.

[Anonymous]

I have the same problem. I am now without my hold mail for 3 months. I have gone to 2 post offices in person, reported it online 3 times, and still no mail. I am now finding out important items in that "hold mail" that I have not received are now costing me fees, and undelivered information, etc. To me, the USPS is an autonomous government department that we, as citizens, have no recourse as victims of their inefficiencies.