USPS Postal Inspectors tracking "lost" mail.

February 25, 2025 | Dr. Franklin

[Dr. Franklin]

If something is mailed without a tracking number, can US Postal authorities track missing mail? The issue is a government agency denying receipt of two different items mailed on different dates, from different places, to different offices. The letters were never returned to sender long after mailing. Can the postal inspectors trace these letters? Complaint was filed with the inspectors with all info from postal receipts.

[Runner4life]

Where do you think the mail gets sorted? It all goes to larger sorting centers.

[bdfromlv]

you know there are 10,000,000 plus people new to this country that cant believe people leave valuable things in boxes outside of their homes.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Thanks for the update. (Except that mail in ballots are not to be photographed according to a recent article.)

[Dr. Franklin]

In a previous life I was a letter carrier, during the last year of the Post Office Department (wore the pony), and then the first couple of years of the USPS (wore the stupid-looking eagle).

A man wrote to the U.S. Post Master General and asked why was it that in the days of the Pony Express a letter could go from Sacramento to Carson City overnight, but now it takes 3 days. The Post Master General wrote back and explained, "Well, you have to understand the ponies are much older now."

[Dr. Franklin]

My question (reworded): Did you ask the USPS if they could trace these letters?

Well rather than stand in line behind people renewing passports and mailing parcels, I filed the report online, since this is now the 21st Century and all. The confirmation said to expect a response in 1 to 3 days. I was hoping that a knowledgeable FReeper had some inside knowledge about tracking letters, since we know letters are photographed and tracked by USPS.

[DouglasKC]

Research Informed Delivery. USPS photographs every piece of mail in the mainstream. But not sure it or they will tell you where the pieces were lost.

I would think it wouldn't take much to scan those images automatically for key words or images. I'm actually pretty impressed by informed delivery. I signed up for it a few years ago and didn't tell my wife. I'd get an email telling what the mail was going to be and then I would "predict" what mail we were going to get that day. She was amazed at my accuracy. I could only keep it up for about a week and a half though until I felt too guilty.

[Spktyr]

Yes, and from there it goes to post offices and waystations. The photo scanning does not take place when the mail comes in and again when it goes out, it only happens on intake. So it can just disappear after that at the final sorting center if it doesn’t have a tracking number.

[Dr. Franklin]

Thanks for the update. (Except that mail in ballots are not to be photographed according to a recent article.)

Election integrity requires that USPS needs to do more to ensure that ballots are traceable to the sender to reduce fraud. There's no good reason not to photograph ballots send by mail.

[AnonymousConservative]

Do you have domestic surveillance problems? They are all through the postal service, to the point I think the Postal Service may have been created as some kind of domestic spying honeypot, where you give the agency your messages, they promise you they cannot be opened because it would be illegal, and in reality they have been opening and reading the mail of everyone important for the life of the agency.

Where I was when my domestic-surveillance/Secret Police adventures started, the local surveillance/gangstalking thing actually took over the back area of the post office. They posted foot surveillance all around it, and got real worked up if you drove behind the post office and sat there. All of a sudden there would be cars all over, and guys coming out the back of the post office to glare at you.

And that whole thing is set up like a public/private partnership run off the books, so if you piss off some big-wig in town who they recruited as an asset for something else, that big-wig can ask his handler to have you harassed, and next thing you know, you are getting followed and harassed by their army of mental-midget foot soldiers.

If you have anything like that going on, you cannot use the post office. Even Fed-Ex or UPS could be problematic as the big domestic spy network in America, encompassing stuff like DEA informants and so on will recruit through them to monitor package deliveries, and that network is available to the harassment people too. It only takes one person to locate and disappear your package for their handler. You would need to use a private courier or something more personal.

[Dr. Franklin]

Do you have domestic surveillance problems?

Not undern Trump. The USPS is not my problem here, and if they can prove the envelopes were delivered, they may be the solution.

[cgbg]

Years ago I mailed in a monthly mortgage payment that was received six months later.

That was the last time I trusted USPS with important bills.

[Dr. Franklin]

you know there are 10,000,000 plus people new to this country that cant believe people leave valuable things in boxes outside of their homes.

And not even in boxes, frequently they are left unguarded on the front porch.

[Runner4life]

I’m fully aware of how the system works....there is not a FINAL sorting center....there is one. Can something happen after it leaves the sorting center? I suppose..but that mail is transported by contract employees, not usps employees ..but you claimed carriers are routinely stealing mail. Has it happened , yes. Do packages get lost from UPS, FedEx, and Amazon ? Yes. Do they get investigated? Yes. Not everything is a conspiracy