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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.consumers
Subject: Re: Filing a Complaint
Message-ID: <1781@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 19-Jan-86 18:10:17 EST
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.1781
Posted: Sun Jan 19 18:10:17 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 20-Jan-86 06:14:24 EST
References: <42400010@gypsy.UUCP> <1733@hammer.UUCP> <457@milano.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh
Lines: 70

In article <457@milano.UUCP> wex@milano.UUCP writes:
>Several people have given good answers to this, but did you know that you
>can complain *to the post office*, *about the post office*?

Big deal.  Perhaps it's just Columbus, but we get the worst mail service
I've ever seen here.

Two years ago, my son received a package for his birthday, by mail.  The
mailman left it in the street, underneath the mailbox.  It was raining,
and the present was ruined.  (It was one of those Fischer-Price wind-up
plastic record players.)

My wife filed the complaint form.  Later that same day, she got a call
from the mailman's boss.  He claimed the mailman had rang the doorbell
and knocked on the door, gotten no response, so he just left it.  Normal
policy is to leave a little pink slip, but the mailman deemed this "not
necessary."

My wife pointed out that she had been at home all day, and that there had
been no doorbell rings or knocks.  Also, the mailman could have left the
package on the porch or in the garage (whose door was open) to shelter it
from the rain.  It was obvious that he hadn't gotten out of his truck,
or he wouldn't have left it in the street.

The boss essentially called my wife a liar and said "you're at fault."
There was no evidence of anything going to DC, in fact, since the boss
said "I'll handle it here", and since the form is sent to the local
post office, you're depending on the complainee to forward his own
complaint.  There's something wrong with that system.

I've gotten some excellent mail service from the USPS in other cities,
including some amazingly wrongly addressed mail getting through, but
Columbus mail takes the cake.  I live in the city limits of Columbus,
but I'm in zip code 43068, which is the Reynoldsburg post office.  I've
seen zip code boundaries cross city limits before with no problem, but
not here.  At closing on our house, they made a big point of telling us
that our mailing address is Reynoldsburg, Ohio; not Columbus, Ohio.  (We
had to sign a fresh form to this effect.)  But we asked if Columbus, Ohio
would work for incoming mail, and they said "sure".  So we started sending
out our new address as Columbus, Ohio, 43068.

After 6 months, my ACM mail stopped coming.  Phoning ACM, my wife discovered
that they had had publications returned to them "no such address" so they
were holding everything.  It seems that if mail is sent to 43068 (e.g. the
Reynoldsburg PO) it gets delivered.  But if they happen to send it to
"Columbus, Ohio" (the downtown post office) it will get returned to the
sender "No such address as Valcour Ct."  All these morons have to do is
send it to the proper post office for the zip code, or look up Valcour Ct
in the street index in the phone book, but apparently that's asking too much.
Needing reliable mail, we gave up and changed our address everywhere to
Reynoldsburg, Ohio, 43068.

(The feds have determined that Columbus went down in population from 1982
to 1984, when all the local statistics say it went up.  Since 40% of the
Columbus city limits are served by suburban school districts, a similar
percentage of surburban post offices probably applies.  Since they use
federal tax forms to estimate population between censuses (censi?), my
personal guess is that the post office is responsible for scaring people
into listing their suburban city on their 1040.)

And then there was 2 weeks ago when I got an express mail notice on Friday,
saying I could pick it up at the post office Saturday.  (Of course, we were
home during the normal mail delivery time, but the guy came 2 hours early
that day.)  I went in shortly before noon Saturday to pick it up, and was
told I couldn't have it because the mailman had it and would try to deliver
it again Saturday!  In this case, however, the postmaster went out in his
car and found the mailman, and hand delivered it about an hour later; this
seemed above and beyond the call of duty.

	Mark