Mail Problems in Charm City

Nov 15 2021
OIG Blog Category: Delivery & Collection 7 Comments

Our audits of Postal Service operations span different geographies, from national analysis to regional to local issues.  While most of our audits are self-initiated, many come from stakeholders including Congress.  

In May 2021, the OIG received requests from Maryland Congressmen C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger and Kweisi Mfume to review mail delivery and customer service operations at select units in the Baltimore area. Constituents had been contacting the two congressional offices with complaints about mail delivery and other customer service issues. In response, we did an initial analysis of service performance and customer complaint data. We found not only had the Baltimore region not met the service targets for four postal products over a 92-week period, but that it also had higher than normal missing mail and package inquiries.

As discussed in our newly released report, OIG auditors set out to evaluate mail delivery and customer service operations at nine Baltimore postal facilities. During our site visits, we observed large amounts of delayed mail, some dating back to December 2020, but very few delayed packages.

We found three main issues that prompted the customer complaints — delayed mail, inaccurate reporting of mail conditions, and improper scanning.  One contributing factor was low employee availability. While there are some factors outside of the U.S. Postal Service’s control, we found postal management could do more to hire and retain employees. 

Our report made seven recommendations to improve staffing, mail condition reporting, and package scanning. Postal Service management agreed with all our findings and recommendations and plans on implementing solutions by the end of November.

Service performance will continue to be an important focus of our work – both across the country and in specific geographic regions. We will soon roll out a new audit team that will issue quick-response reports in selected geographic areas that will allow the Postal Service to fix problems promptly.  

Comments (7)

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  • anon

    I am a senior citizen and sometime I make mistakes. On 12/16. I mailed a package to an address in Springfield VA and unfortunately put the wrong ZIP code on it. It was not caught by either me or the clerk in Durham and thus the drama began. The ZIP code unfortunately was for Towson MD and therefore the package arrived there four days later via the Baltimore DC (BDC). It then went back to to the BDC and then to Linthicum Heights and back to BDC, twice, then back to Towson and finally back to BDC on 12/26. I have placed two different Service Requests via personal phone calls with (very nice ladies) at USPS.com who both tried to rectify the problem, but so far to no avail. Today, I came upon OIG Report # 21-237-R22, so now I think I know what the problem is. Ironically, the house # and street in Springfield is the only one in the US according to Google Maps.

    Dec 27, 2021
  • anon

    I realize that Christmas time means high volume for the post office. And I realize that ordering something from overseas might be risky. But I cannot fathom is how my package made it all the way to the Baltimore Distribution Center - and then just SAT for over a week!? It arrived the Monday prior to Christmas - was not even received until the following day - and then somehow could not make it into transport to come up to my local post office in Perryville. This is a gift for someone who flew out from Colorado and flies back tomorrow. Now I am going to have to PAY for shipping to Colorado ONCE I finally get the package (who can say when that will be). I think I will use FedEx or UPS as I don’t trust anything that comes into or goes out of Baltimore!

    Dec 27, 2021
  • anon

    My mail has not been delivered in two days ( Nov 26,27 -2021. I know what pieces of mail I have coming everyday because I have the app from UPS saying what mail I am to receive for that day. No mail on Prest ( between Curtis and 7 mile. All neighbors are complaining.

    Nov 29, 2021
  • anon

    Informed delivery tells you that a piece ran through a machine at the plant the night before. It does not tell you if your local delivery unit has enough manpower to deliver to every route. In higher cost of living areas if your carrier goes out, be it sick, vacation or jury duty that station increasingly does not have substitutes to carry the route and on many days only parcels are delivered. That is to avoid the 2020 news stories of dead baby chicks and veteran's not receiving their medications. About the only solution is the military draft and to have the Postmaster General compel people to stop what they want to do and force them to carry mail in those locations where "good postal wages and benefits" are not actually good.

    Dec 31, 2021
  • anon

    Forcing that lower tier half pay and half benefit PSE and CCA position for two years is just the chickens coming home to roost. When combined with trying to recruit folks to work in Baltimore at the exact same rate of pay as you do for the lowest cost of living county in Mississippi you have the perfect storm for a labor shortage and the inability to man routes for 6 days a week. You can shift Postmasters around all you want but since indentured servitude won't be allowed there is no fix except to pay more than Amazon will pay to do the same work with more flexible hours and working conditions.

    Nov 16, 2021
  • anon

    It has been very hard to keep staffing since they implemented Temp employees and it has only gotten worse. Most people who get hired to not understand what they sign up for when they apply for the job for a PSE or a CCA. There are no full time hours, they just see a “government “job. Once they see either a) they are not getting enough hours they leave, b) they are being worked so much they can not keep up, they leave. There is no guarantee of hours to keep them happy. Which when you are putting food on your table and have a family to raise, those hours are needed and they need to know when they are coming. With the post office every week is a guessing game of where your hours are coming from and from which office they are coming from as well. You want to keep staff? Find a way to make more full time employees and have minimal temp or transitional employees.

    Nov 15, 2021
  • anon

    Something is amiss. The Inspector General has been making recommendations for a long time. Yet the USPS problems persist.

    Nov 15, 2021