Certified Mail Scam?

I would file a formal written complaint ABOVE the level of the office you dealt with citing all the data of your treatment from this clerk, thanking the USPIS, with plain and obvious cc to your US Senators and Representative. Action can happen quite fast when things move above the level of local control and they want to cover their back sides. I would continue to use that same PO as a way of baiting additional behavior from this clerk. I do not believe they cannot ban you from the facility - certainly not without proper procedures.

It's not that they'd ban me (who knows maybe they would) it's more that it's so awkward. You know the expression "even a worm will turn"? I have always been the worm. I generally do not complain but perhaps because I consider mail so sacred I finally had to say something. Now I think I will write my congressman (he's pretty up there). What a joke. I will continue to update my melodrama until the webmaster says enough. I will fight for the little guy

The bigger problem is potentially having someone at the local office who will go out of their way to [CENSORED] with your incoming or outgoing mail... items mysteriously disappearing or getting damaged. That could really get nasty.

I'll echo John Becker's recommendation to file a complaint above the local level. Additionally, were it me, I would request to have a face-to-face polite conversation with the postmaster at your location. Not confrontational, but rather from the perspective of "being concerned about the situation."

honey, vinegar, etc.

As I see it, you made a federal case** out of the fact you thought the letter was not delivered to you and it seemed to you that it was delivered to an agent who you did not authorize to pick up your mail, specifically a particular certified letter. You likely advised you were concerned that it was a document associated with and on going civil court matter*.

Once said letter was relocated and you were advised it was available for pick up, you did not go get it, you sent an agent***. But you made a federal case about that certified being allowed to be picked up by an agent. Thus your agent was denied the ability to pick up the certified letter.

Knowing the certified letter was cause of a federal case, the supervisor on their own or at the worthy suggestion of the USPIS member, decided that it could be picked up by you and only you. That was a good and safe call considering the letter was the subject of a federal case.

Now go get it, but bring your ID, and once you have it, thank the supervisor for making sure this get directly into your hands since it was so important to you.


** You contacted a branch of the federal law enforcement powers and filed a complaint thus initiating a federal case regarding proper delivery of this certified letter.

* Proof of service via certified mail is a legal threshold which becomes criminal in nature if tampered with. This also makes this a state or local case depending upon the set up of your state and county court systems, unless of course your lawsuit was in federal court and thus again a federal case.


*** You initiated a federal case (see above at "**") complaining that a certified letter addressed to you was improperly delivered to an agent. While that did not occur and in fact the letter was just misfiled in the mail awaiting pick up area. However be that as it may, you were quite clear you did not want that letter delivered to an agent. Why did you send an agent? The USPS restricting delivery of that certified letter to you and you alone was fully within the spirit of the federal case which you initiated. Any employee, supervisor or not, was wise to be sure that certified letter went only one of two places, to you personally or properly returned to the sender following the date guidelines for such returns.









Now what was the letter about? The lawsuit matter or an unrelated subject?

This tidbit excerpted from the original post is why a formal complaint is highly warranted, regardless of the actual security of the letter. The clerk was in error (somehow) and assertive about being correct, then was rude. That level of misconduct by any clerk deserves complaint and at a level above the office in question so it cannot be swept under the rug as easily.




This is the first domino in the event sequence and is where the problem really is. I don't see any "federal case" here. When my mail goes missing, I ask hard questions and expect honest, no-nonsense answers.

Final update: after sending a few more emails to the first customer service contact I had, I wrote another new complaint through the USPS website itself. The next day I received a call from the USPIS who were following up on a report that the original supervisor thought I had threatened him when I told him I'd make sure he loses his status as supervisor. The investigator was very jovial and literally said "oh haha ya I'm just making sure you're not planning to shoot up the post office :)" No sir I was not. Even he said that, having conversed with the supervisor over the course of a phone call, he agreed that the guy was very rude and abrasive and very unbecoming of his position. I said, if he's talking to a federal investigator like that imagine how he talks to a lowly customer. The next day I got a call from the postmaster at my post office. She was saying they had the letter and was apologizing about my experience and that it would be best if I could pick it up. I said that the original supervisor scared me, that I didn't like confrontation, and that I might just pass on the letter. She said she would give it to the carrier to be delivered the next day. That same day, the postmaster drove to my building herself (it's not far from the office) and hand delivered the letter saying she just wanted the whole thing resolved. Talk about service! She was very nice and apologetic and I said I was sorry it had come to this. In the end, in the letter was a money order related to the lawsuit, so I guess in a way it would've been been better not to have been delivered :p I thank you all for taking this journey with me