USPS is telling people their mail is being held 'at the request of the customer.' It isn't true.

[orangecrush]

August 27, 2020 at 7:00 a.m. EDT
U.S. Postal Service customers across the country have been receiving a notification that often alarms and perplexes them: The message says packages they expected delivered to their home or business are being held at a post office “at the request of the customer.”



The packages are delayed because of broad changes Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has implemented to the nation’s mail delivery operations, including policies that slow down package delivery. When a mail carrier cannot deliver a package on the day it was scheduled because their shift is ending, postal workers say, the system sometimes generates a misleading “held at the request of the customer” message.


Although the reality is that the mail carrier will deliver the package, sometimes the next day, customers say the message has prompted them to visit the post office to claim their items — even if they are concerned about venturing out because of the coronavirus pandemic — and has undermined their faith in mail delivery leading up to the 2020 election.

“Shouldn’t it say that the carrier couldn’t deliver it today because time ran out? ... The message is incorrect,” said Jamaal Vetose of Baltimore County, who had lost his mask and visited the post office without it to pick up his package containing a new one after receiving the erroneous notification.

Postal Service spokespeople did not answer questions from The Washington Post about why customers are getting this message. One spokesman said he could not answer without seeing the tracking numbers. When The Post provided tracking numbers from two packages, the Postal Service did not respond.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/08/27/usps-delayed-packages/

[Iliyah]

1. Now the F.B.I. and republicans are saying that absentee voting safe . ...

no fraud, et al.

Well hell, the damage as been done. I hear that shithole number 2 (dejoy) will not fix the damage.

[orangecrush]

2. Putinesque.

And they are just getting warmed up.

[dalton99a]

3. Meaning "at the request of Louis DeJoy"

[orangecrush]

8. Exactly.

[frazzled]

4. I wonder

Okay, I was expecting a small package coming from USPS the other day, and the tracking said it was out on the truck for delivery. So I checked online several times in the afternoon to see if it had been delivered. (Note: I live in a building with a package room on the ground floor, and we go down only once per day during COVID to pick up the morning New York Times, yesterday's mail, and any packages that had been delivered. I wasn't going to go get it until the next morning, but just wanted to know if it had come).

It hadn't been marked as delivered by 6 pm, so I figured it was the no overtime thing, and that it would come the next day. Later that night my spouse went to take the trash out down the hallway, and a neighbor had brought my little package up and put it outside our door. It had been delivered. Fine.

But next day I looked at the tracking out of curiosity, and instead of the expected "Delivered" notification it had a red "Alert!" and in small print said something to the effect that the package delivery had not been input to the system.

I wonder if the (wonderful) carriers in our system are going out after prescribed hours and just not logging the deliveries in, to skirt the rules. Hooray for them if that is the case.

ON EDIT: Just ran this theory past my spouse, about our carriers bucking DeJoy by not scanning in deliveries, and he said "100%."

[PufPuf23]

5. I bought something online about a month ago and it never came

so finally I got around to contacting the Seller late last week.

Got an email from Seller who had made a credit to my bank card.

The package had been returned to the Seller by the USPS after several weeks marked as undeliverable.

I have had the same mailing address for decades, a PO Box at the nearest Post Office (where I live is very rural and there is no home delivery except UPS).

So just weird and maybe unconnected but also a novel experience with USPS.

[Midnightwalk]

6. How is that message delivered?

They don’t have my email or cell so they would have to deliver a card or something to my house, but their shift ran out so I’m confused.

I must be missing something Probably a dumb question.

[Sherman A1]

7. Recently I had two different parcels

on tow different occasions be flagged as undeliverable due to no secure location being available. It was on days substitute carriers were on and I suspect they ran out of time, chose not to deliver the packages that day or the item was held at the PO never getting on their truck to deliver to me. Both eventually arrived, but it was several days later.

As much as I support the USPS I have very much limited my online purchases that I believe will use the Postal Service as I just don't know if or when the items will arrive. The up side is that I have saved some money on what were probably impulse purchases which isn't all bad. I do use online services that either deliver directly or use other carriers.