Legibility, errors slow mail delivery

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July 21, 2010

Crystal Brown CNHI The Weatherford Democrat Wed Jul 21, 2010, 08:19 AM CDT

WEATHERFORD —

A priority mail letter left Weatherford July 9, was processed in a Fort Worth sorting facility the next day and reached its final destination in Denver July 12. This is how the public expects the United States Postal Service to operate, but Willow Park resident John Plummer said this instance was the exception for him, not the norm.

Plummer claims to have had difficulty with priority letters reaching their destination in an acceptable amount of time from the Weatherford post office since he moved to the area in 2007.

One letter he mailed the same day as the Denver one was to travel some 70 miles to a law firm in Carrollton. Three days later it was sitting in Honolulu, Hawaii, according to tracking information he found on the USPS website.

“I don’t always take time to drive to Fort Worth to do my mailing,” Plummer said. “I would think my local post office would be able to do it. I’ve even had issues with them holding my mail for me when I’m out of town.”

Representatives with the Weatherford branch of the USPS would not answer questions from the Democrat about their procedures and directed inquiries to the consumer affairs department.

Sam Bolen, a spokesman for the postal service, said they can’t guarantee delivery on any item unless it is sent express service, which starts at about $14 per item and increase based on size. It is the only mailing method that includes a refund for items not delivered by the time promised.

“For legal documents, that’s probably the best thing to use,” Bolen said.

He couldn’t provide an specific answer as to why a letter traveling across two counties would end up on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean without actually looking at the piece of mail. However, he did say it is not uncommon for mail to be routed to the wrong destination because of transposed zip code numbers or scanners reading numbers incorrectly — if a 7 looks like a 2 or a 3 resembles an 8.

“In the postal service we say ‘If you put the wrong zip it can be a long trip, and if there is no zip it can be a slow trip,’” Bolen said. “With all the automation and scanners we use, it’s literally going to be sent to the zip code on the mail. There is not a lot of human contact.”

Some mistakes are noticed in handling, others are not discovered until a carrier in one state realizes they have a letter for another and sends it on to the correct location.

But with Carrollton’s zip code starting with 750 and all of Honolulu starting with 960, Plummer thinks there is more human error involved. The son of a retired postal worker said there is room for human error when the postal clerk punches in the destination or when the letters are being hand sorted before bar code labels are put on them.

“At [the Weatherford branch] they have baskets and hand sort by what part of the United States it’s headed to,” Plummer said. “They’re not scanning it at the branch. They hand sort to start with, then it gets a bar code and then processed at the main processing center.”

Bolen suggested anyone having trouble with mail reaching its intended destination should speak with their local post office supervisor or contact the consumer affairs department at 817-317-3698 or 817-317-3623.

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Legibility, errors slow mail delivery

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