How Long Should It Take The USPS To Process A COA Request?

I haven't experienced this for several years, so perhaps this is the "new normal" with the USPS.

I recently moved on September 1. In mid-August I dutifully filled out a Change of Address Card and personally handed it to the clerk at my town post office to process. No problem (or so I thought).

About 10 days after moving, I started to receive a few redirected pieces of mail with the yellow tag "inform sender of new address" and my new address listed on it, so I know the USPS processed my COA request promptly but here it is five weeks later, and I just received today a couple of pieces of mail that were posted on September 2. That's right, it took the USPS 37 days to redirect two pieces of mail to my new address! Is that typical? In one case it was a credit card statement but fortunately I contacted the company for my balance and made the payment on time; in the other case, it was a notice from my health insurance company but there again, they have my new address now.

I'm still waiting for a bank statement that normally is received the first week of the month but I haven't received the September statement by mail (the bank provided me with the missing copy, though).

Is this typical of the speed (or lack thereof) the USPS typically takes in redirecting mail when one moves to a new address?

Just wondering.

You should mail yourself a letter to your old address to see what's going on. Also, it's far better to call all your creditors, bank, &c. directly rather than rely on the USPS.

I did just that, but the date of my move vs. the date the last statements went into the mail happened to cross, so my creditors and banks knew of my new address, it's just that the last statement was already in the mail to my "old" address and in a couple of cases, I'm still waiting. Fortunately everything is coming to my new address now, but the previous month's statements are still held up in USPS limbo.

The message on the yellow label is just a reminder/nag that you should inform all your contacts of your new address, because (theoretically) they won't forward your mail after a certain period (60 days, if I remember correctly). However, we moved last October, and we are still receiving forwarded mail with the yellow labels.

Also, it is hard to tell if the delay in your delivery is due to local inefficiency, or the move. Personally, our mail delivery times improved dramatically when we got a new deliverer several months ago.

wt1, I shouldn't have assumed anything. My apologies.

I still think it would be interesting for you to mail yourself a letter at your old address and count the days.

There are lots of reasons that mail subject to a CoA is delayed; including:

- the carrier goes on vacation and/or has sick days, and the carrier supervisor hustles the substitute out the door without the 'forwards' being 'pulled', so the mail is delivered to the old address;

- mail is mis-delivered (here comes the best part) to an empty apartment or house and, therefor, does not come back to the USPS for days or weeks or months;

- etc, etc, etc.

Don't look *inside* the protocol for the problem; look outside.

Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey

Check with your local post office on this because I could be wrong, but the last time I did a change of address card I believe the clerk told me that the post office would not forward banking information such as your statement. That's been quite a while back so I could just be hallucinating--comes with age, old age.

Some of the mail which was handled by your original carrier will go to the central forwarding system ( CFS) and depends on how backed up they are, it could take awhile. Other mail is caught by the fast forward system which will spay your new barcode on the bottom of a piece of mail which still has your old address, but will be delivered to your new address.