USPS Office of Inspector General

From time to time the OIG, usually represented by the Inspector General (IG), is asked to testify before a Congressional committee or subcommittee. Our agency may be asked to testify about various aspects of Postal Service operations, our investigations into such areas as drug trafficking, or an overview of issues raised in a recent audit or white paper.

You hear about it a lot in the news lately — so many businesses having trouble fully staffing their workplaces to keep up with customer demand. While this is a fairly recent problem, it’s been an ongoing one for the U.S. Postal Service throughout the pandemic.

Today, the nation celebrates its 245^th birthday. Did you know that in just a few weeks the U.S. Postal Service will mark its 246^th? That’s right, July 26, 1775 — the day the Second Continental Congress appointed Ben Franklin as its first postmaster general — is recognized as the start of America’s postal services. Franklin was the perfect candidate to helm the new nation’s own mail system, as he oversaw the British colonial mail service that was being replaced.

As the nation struggled with containing the fast-paced coronavirus outbreak, instances of pandemic-related mail theft and mail fraud were also spreading. Indeed, over the course of a year, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) received 339,747 complaints of mail fraud and mail theft, leading the agency to open 753 mail fraud cases — an increase of 170 cases (29 percent) over the prior 12 months — and 1,090 mail theft cases — a decrease of 49 cases (4 percent) over the prior 12 months. Of these, 277 cases were specifically related to the pandemic.

In modern marketing, companies often draw from a chest of marketing tools to target the right customer at the right time. They mix and match a multitude of advertising channels to create an efficient campaign when every marketing dollar counts against the bottom line.