Love the USPS

USPS is on our Naughty list this year.

Our son Will and his new wife moved about an hour away and did a change of address for Will Hampton V and Lohryn Hampton.  Suddenly, we were receiving no mail at our house for anyone including us (Wade and Laura).

We found out that the USPS only looks at the first letter of the first name and first 4 letters of the last name, not full name, and especially not suffixes (I'm IV, he's V), so all mail to W Hamp or L Hamp went to my son's new address an hour away (via a post office near Manassas, VA).  All mail took an extra week or more, then they had to meet up with us to give it to us.  To make matters worse, his wife had health issues and ended up in the hospital an hour away from their house (2 hours from us).

I went in to the USPS and did the form to revert it.  At the time, they said it was OK and should be fixed in a couple of days (up to a week -- why so long?).  A week later, I went in again and they said the form was incorrect and had to be done differently, plus explained the first letter of first name, etc. rule.  Nice of them to explain that now, but why not when the first forwarding was done?.  The next day we called and they said they did a computer entry and it was now fixed. A few days later it still was not fixed and required yet another visit and form.  Eventually, it took multiple visits by my wife and me to get it fixed.

It took nearly a month to fix the forwarding problem, which is simply an entry in a computer and updates at the local office.  That's efficiency!

This snafu messed up Christmas gifts, bills, invitations, etc.

Warning:  this can happen to you too (a co-worker had a similar experience)....