Who (over the age of 18) doesn't remember getting a long-awaited letter in the mail? Who hasn't smiled as a postcard from a far-away locale? Mail is part of our collective memories.
For me, it goes even further — I've known several people who work for USPS.
But after this week, I'm going to commit to using USPS as little as possible. I've got e-mail, a fax line and FedEx at my disposal. Don't mail me; I might not reply.
I needed to send a check overnight to my bank, which has a P.O. box., so I used the USPS's online "Click-N-Ship" online service to print a label. For $18, my postage printed, and all I had to do was drop it off.
I printed out the label on Monday, Jan. 16, a holiday. I swung by my local post office on Tuesday morning around 9 a.m. and dropped the Express Mail envelope in the clearly-marked Express Mail drop box outside. Cut-off time was 5 p.m.; I had made it with several hours.
So I was a little pissed when I looked the next morning to find that my package hadn't even been scanned yet. I was busy with work, so I checked later that day to find out that it was scanned around 1 p.m. that day — still here in Austin. more than 24 hours had gone by and the package hadn't moved!
I called the USPS toll-free number, which is akin to one of those hedge mazes, talked to four different people (one of whom admitted she had no idea what she was doing), until finally being told to print out a screenshot and take it to my local post office for a refund.
So I did that, only to be told that they can't give a refund for non-delivery until the item delivers. Chew on that for a second.
The next day, Thursday, Jan. 19, now 48 hours after I mailed the package, it arrived at the PO box in Phoenix. I went for my refund. This time I was told that the initial scan was on Jan. 18, so the package had indeed made it overnight.
I explained that I had dropped the letter off on Tuesday, so it was a day late, then I was asked for something with a postmark. Huh? Apparently, unless you go to the counter and get a receipt for your drop-off, they won't guarantee overnight delivery, although they're happy to collect the $18.
So, my question to the USPS is "Why do you encourage people to go online and then place drop-off boxes if you really don't want people doing that?"
Anyway, I got screwed out of $18. Fast forward to the actual package itself. It was a check — a very large one — that I needed deposited into my checking account. I use Charles Schwab Bank, which has only one branch in Nevada. For all intents and purposes, it's an online bank with some awesome features. Normally I could just take a photo (seriously) of the check for a deposit, but over a certain amount, they need the physical check. So I overnighted it to them.
Unfortunately, they couldn't find it, so Friday morning, the deposit still wasn't there. I made a call the Schwab, and a banker answered on the second ring. An actual human. Who listened to me and understood the situation. He promised to contact the appropriate people to find the check and deposit it... in fact, he would waive the normal hold on large checks and deposit the entire thing for immediate withdrawal. I didn't ask for that, but it was an example of great customer service that goes above and beyond.
It was an incredibly stark contrast to the Postal Service. One might try to make some sort of "government agency" joke, but this is really just human errors compounded by laziness. They didn't try to make it right; they didn't care. Schwab on the other hand, didn't really do anything wrong, but still went out of their way to make me feel that they valued me as a customer.
And for that, I'd like to talk to Chuck. And thank him. And remind him to never, ever use the post office again.
P.S. This same afternoon, Continental Airlines called to thank ME for sending in a compliment about one of their flight attendants. An actual person called me to thank me for thanking them. Amazing! Such wonderful customer service. United — please don't kill that.
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