September 28, 2004

11:21 AM

The Post Office has screwed up my mail forwarding, and every person with whom I speak gives me a different story. How do I reach a competent person who will take ownership of the problem? (Chicago, IL)
posted by trharlan to (3 comments total)

call your local congressman's washington office. Ask them to intervene. It works. They need votes every two years...
This is the preferred approach any time you are having federal probs. be it IRS, Immigration etc.
posted by Fupped Duck at 12:00 PM on September 28, 2004

I know this seems counterintuitive, but use their web form. Indicate that you have a complaint, it's causing large scale problems for you and that you would like a response promptly. This will create an incident report which is a lot less easy to brush under the rug than an anonymous phone call. If you've spoken to other people, say who they are and what they told you would happen. Start keeping a paper trail of everyone you've spoke to, ask for first names and last names. When they offer a "wait and see" solution, make sure you ask and/or let them know what you will do if the problem is not fixed by some agreed-upon deadline. Don't agree that the problem "seems fixed" unless you know for sure that it IS fixed. If you reach a dead-end, go back to the person who sent you there and ask for a better solution. Also, checking with your local PO can't hurt. I had a mail forwarding loop disaster that was caused by the lady in my local post office forgetting to take the little end-cover off of my PO box, even though my temporary forwarding order has expired. Also, don't yell at anyone.

Chicago is the WORST for this, as you may know if you've read Jonathan Franzen's essay "Lost in the Mail" However, they also are supposed to have omsbudspersons in place to sort out what decades of bad bureacracy has done to the place. You might want to call these people and see what they recommend.
posted by jessamyn at 12:01 PM on September 28, 2004

Thanks jessamyn. The webform returned an unknown error. I called tech support, who gave me an email address. My email to the furnished address bounced. I have sent another email to the postmaster general. We'll see what happens, and I'll try Fupped Duck's suggestion if the next 24 hours are fruitless.
posted by trharlan at 12:58 PM on September 28, 2004