Who is stealing my mail??
June 29, 2004 8:07 AM Subscribe
I think someone is stealing my mail. I am a bit obssessed with finding out who is doing this. I suspect the mail lady. Each time I have asked her about missing items, like magazines, they have appeared in my mail in a few days. Is there any way to find out who is doing this? What can I do if it is the mail lady?
Send yourself (from another location) a bunch of test letters. Some of them are empty envelopes, some of them contain random typed material, and some contain birthday cards with a wad of Monopoly money inside....
Document the entire proceedings. If some things don't arrive, or else arrive but have been opened, contact your local postal inspector.
Note: if your delivery person is the thief, this will tip them off that you're on to them. You may not want that to happen. If you're *really* gung-ho, you could put small amounts of real money in the cards -- but take lots of pics, and record the serial numbers of the money. More documentary evidence = good.
posted by aramaic at 8:21 AM on June 29, 2004
Document the entire proceedings. If some things don't arrive, or else arrive but have been opened, contact your local postal inspector.
Note: if your delivery person is the thief, this will tip them off that you're on to them. You may not want that to happen. If you're *really* gung-ho, you could put small amounts of real money in the cards -- but take lots of pics, and record the serial numbers of the money. More documentary evidence = good.
posted by aramaic at 8:21 AM on June 29, 2004
If you live in a remote area, it's possible that your mail carrier is behind on her deliveries and getting later every day. Some mail carrier in a rural township is always making news for getting in over his/her head and burning/dumping/hoarding undelivered mail.
It's more likely that your local sorting station just sucks and is slow, but you might register a complaint both at your major regional office (closest large city) and a letter to the national organization. One letter won't change anything, but enough complaints from one region might. Talk to your neighbors.
posted by Mayor Curley at 8:24 AM on June 29, 2004
It's more likely that your local sorting station just sucks and is slow, but you might register a complaint both at your major regional office (closest large city) and a letter to the national organization. One letter won't change anything, but enough complaints from one region might. Talk to your neighbors.
posted by Mayor Curley at 8:24 AM on June 29, 2004
All these various sting operations sound alot like entrapment too me. Your mail passes through many, many hands before it ever gets to you, and you're not going to get any new data or evidence using aramaic's method, only more possibly misattributed 'proof' of your premature indictment of your mail carrier. Consider an alternate scenario: maybe she's listening to your complaints about unrecieved magazines, going back to the distribution center, finding your mail, and bringing it to you the next day. That explanation seems to fit your account as well, but mailing yourself cash in an attempt to demonstrate what a nasty person she is probably won't help prove or disprove my hypothesis.
I'd go to the post office and talk with somebody. I'm sure, knowing the USPS, that there is some sort of bureaucratic procedure for all this.
posted by ChasFile at 9:27 AM on June 29, 2004
I'd go to the post office and talk with somebody. I'm sure, knowing the USPS, that there is some sort of bureaucratic procedure for all this.
posted by ChasFile at 9:27 AM on June 29, 2004
sure, knowing the USPS, that there is some sort of bureaucratic procedure for all this
...and that would be the postal inspector I mentioned.
posted by aramaic at 9:33 AM on June 29, 2004
...and that would be the postal inspector I mentioned.
posted by aramaic at 9:33 AM on June 29, 2004
Talk to your neighbors first. If they have similar problems, you may want to talk to the local postmaster. Actually, even if they don't have similar experiences, you can still register a complaint.
Should all that fail, or you aren't up for confrontation, you could get a PO Box.
posted by jerseygirl at 10:08 AM on June 29, 2004
Should all that fail, or you aren't up for confrontation, you could get a PO Box.
posted by jerseygirl at 10:08 AM on June 29, 2004
Mail carriers read your magazines. Always have. Always will.
The best solution is to have a talk with them. Explain that you know it's going on, but you need it to stop. You pay real money to have your magazines ASAP and unread. They can read someone else's copy.
If they don't fess up and promise to stop, call the post office and ask to talk to a supervisor. They get this complaint daily and surely have ways to deal with it.
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:41 AM on June 29, 2004
The best solution is to have a talk with them. Explain that you know it's going on, but you need it to stop. You pay real money to have your magazines ASAP and unread. They can read someone else's copy.
If they don't fess up and promise to stop, call the post office and ask to talk to a supervisor. They get this complaint daily and surely have ways to deal with it.
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:41 AM on June 29, 2004
Response by poster: Thanks for all the suggestions. Jerseygirl, I do plan to get a post office box as soon as I have time to stand in line. y6y6y6, I don't have any problems with them reading my magazines, but since I pay for them, I would like the chance to read them too. I have asked the mail carrier several times about what could be happening with my mail. She always says that either mail is slow or that some kids could be stealing my mail. Well, yes, mail could be slow, but I get a lot priority packages from ebay. It seems to me these would be more appealing to kids, but yet those are never taken. It seems that my neighbors haven't noticed any problems, for what its worth.
posted by renyoj at 10:55 AM on June 29, 2004
posted by renyoj at 10:55 AM on June 29, 2004
If the mail was actually slow, your neighbors would be reporting the same problems... and you say that they haven't. That only leaves on real scenerio, to me: she's totally grabbing your mail. That makes me nervous now that I think of it...
Have you ever lost something important in the mail -- checks, credit card invoices, anything with your social security (or equally important ID) on it? If so, you may want to monitor your credit cards, and especially check your credit report on a very regular basis.
posted by jerseygirl at 11:23 AM on June 29, 2004
Have you ever lost something important in the mail -- checks, credit card invoices, anything with your social security (or equally important ID) on it? If so, you may want to monitor your credit cards, and especially check your credit report on a very regular basis.
posted by jerseygirl at 11:23 AM on June 29, 2004
"Each time I have asked her about missing items, like magazines, they have appeared in my mail in a few days."
Maybe I'm missing something, but it doesn't seem like her story is adding up. If kids stole your mags, why would they return them? Also, what magazines are they supposedly stealing? It sounds like she's taking them home, which is a federal crime.
Calling the Postmaster might clear it up. If she's taking magazines out of the loop for a few weeks then he's probably gotten many complaints about her.
posted by y6y6y6 at 12:23 PM on June 29, 2004
Maybe I'm missing something, but it doesn't seem like her story is adding up. If kids stole your mags, why would they return them? Also, what magazines are they supposedly stealing? It sounds like she's taking them home, which is a federal crime.
Calling the Postmaster might clear it up. If she's taking magazines out of the loop for a few weeks then he's probably gotten many complaints about her.
posted by y6y6y6 at 12:23 PM on June 29, 2004
This happened to me for a while. I just put a chart up on the fridge and kept track of what day of the month my magazines arrived. I'd call the subscription service to figure out what days they had mailed them and then figured out how long it would take me to get them. You can then take this information to your local post office and tell them that you want them to deal with this. In my case, they would send me test letters [an envelope with another letter inside where you say when it arrived and send it back] and delivering these seemed to get the mail carrier to straighten up and fly right, or at least read my magazines more quickly.
posted by jessamyn at 1:42 PM on June 29, 2004
posted by jessamyn at 1:42 PM on June 29, 2004
Do like like Joey does to Chandler on Freinds to get him back: the opposite. They're taking your magazines; you give them all of yours. Put your Post Office's address on like 50 of those free-tiral-issue card inserts and send them in. That would totally get them back! Ha ha, losers!
posted by ChasFile at 2:37 PM on June 29, 2004
posted by ChasFile at 2:37 PM on June 29, 2004
Hum.
I know for a fact my mail carrier sits and reads someones magazines in his little wrong side of the steering wheel in america truck.
which doesn't bug me in the least, since I only get monthly ones and don't notice if they are a day or two late.
Wouldn't someone have the same problem with a P.O. box? People in the sorting rooms reading their mail instead of sitting in a truck?
Then again, I've never had a P.O. box. How much do those thing cost anyway? I got a delightful chain letter in an email today and took the time to actually respond and point out how bad they are, how illegal they are, and how she would never make any money off it. Don't normally bother with spammers, but this was very personalized, by some poor thing who thought it was real, and I was bored.
posted by jeribus at 9:41 PM on June 29, 2004
I know for a fact my mail carrier sits and reads someones magazines in his little wrong side of the steering wheel in america truck.
which doesn't bug me in the least, since I only get monthly ones and don't notice if they are a day or two late.
Wouldn't someone have the same problem with a P.O. box? People in the sorting rooms reading their mail instead of sitting in a truck?
Then again, I've never had a P.O. box. How much do those thing cost anyway? I got a delightful chain letter in an email today and took the time to actually respond and point out how bad they are, how illegal they are, and how she would never make any money off it. Don't normally bother with spammers, but this was very personalized, by some poor thing who thought it was real, and I was bored.
posted by jeribus at 9:41 PM on June 29, 2004
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by mathowie at 8:16 AM on June 29, 2004