Did you check with the USPS?
All I know is you only have 30 days from when you mailed the he package to file a claim - and the web site isn’t always up
Newman!
It’ll probably arrive in a few months...
The USPS should emulate Amazon’s system.
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.
Not really.
If they got reports from various people that could be tracked to a particular carrier or post office they could put them under surveillance.
If the item had a tracking number they could track the scans. The issue is that they are not always scanned at every step.
For a single piece of mail? Without tracking? Or special handling (Priority or Express or Certified) I think you are out of luck.
Possibly. If it makes it to a local post office, some places take photos of everything that comes through, so they might be able to figure out its last location.
Remember how in 2020 they wanted $10 billion dollars for the USPS in some giant continuing resolution, ostensibly to assist with the mail in balloting?
I do think they got that money in the end. They lost nearly $10 billion in 2020.
I don’t trust them with regular mail (even though I still use it) and I definitely don’t trust them with mail-in ballots.
One night many long years ago I was driving at night from San Francisco to Sacramento. I think it was after a MacWorld Expo. I was running over things while pieces of paper were blowing around. Some of the things I ran over were quite substantial. This went on for several miles from just after the Bay Bridge until almost Vallejo. Finally I caught up with a semi truck owned by the United States Postal Service with the back door open. It was pulled over to the side of the road. It occurred to me that lots of the mail that had been strewn all over the road over about 100 miles would never be accounted for.
I order scale models and books on occasion and the last 3-4 orders have either been lost in the mail or sat at some facility for 10+ days. Mail delivery is getting lousy, except for the bills.
This was sent 1 month ago today, it is still on the merry-go-round.
Moving Through Network
In Transit to Next Facility
February 24, 2025
Arrived at USPS Facility
INDIANAPOLIS, IN 46219
February 18, 2025, 7:50 pm
Processing Exception
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 17, 2025, 8:32 am
Processing Exception
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 13, 2025, 11:27 am
Processing Exception
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 13, 2025, 12:05 am
Processing Exception
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 12, 2025, 11:59 pm
Processing Exception
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 12, 2025, 4:41 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 12, 2025, 3:15 am
Departed USPS Regional Facility
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 12, 2025, 2:15 am
Processing Exception
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 11, 2025, 6:19 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 11, 2025, 6:09 pm
Missing Mail Search Request Initiated, Missing Mail Search Request ID MRC 25 2024 0660
February 10, 2025, 2:57 pm
Processing at USPS Facility
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19149
February 10, 2025, 2:44 pm
Arrived at Post Office
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19149
February 8, 2025, 8:58 am
Arrived at USPS Facility
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19149
February 8, 2025, 7:36 am
Departed USPS Regional Facility
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 8, 2025, 6:33 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 8, 2025, 3:57 am
Departed USPS Regional Facility
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 8, 2025, 3:35 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 7, 2025, 10:43 pm
Processing at USPS Facility
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19149
February 7, 2025, 4:51 pm
Arrived at USPS Facility
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19149
February 7, 2025, 5:10 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 6, 2025, 4:55 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 6, 2025, 2:06 am
Processing at USPS Facility
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19149
February 5, 2025, 3:39 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 4, 2025, 10:12 am
Arrived at USPS Facility
PHILADELPHIA, PA 19149
February 3, 2025, 12:02 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 1, 2025, 3:22 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 1, 2025, 10:20 am
Departed USPS Regional Facility
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 1, 2025, 9:40 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
PHILADELPHIA PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
January 31, 2025, 4:11 am
In Transit to Next Facility
January 31, 2025, 3:43 am
In Transit to Next Facility
January 30, 2025, 11:37 pm
Departed USPS Regional Facility
WARRENDALE PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
January 30, 2025, 8:54 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
WARRENDALE PA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
January 30, 2025, 4:46 am
In Transit to Next Facility
January 29, 2025, 12:41 pm
In Transit to Next Facility
January 28, 2025, 9:40 pm
Departed USPS Regional Facility
MORENO VALLEY CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
January 28, 2025, 6:12 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility
MORENO VALLEY CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
January 27, 2025, 6:37 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility
SAN BERNARDINO CA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
January 25, 2025, 8:50 pm
USPS in possession of item
BEAUMONT, CA 92223
January 25, 2025, 12:52 pm
My son sold a hunting knife to someone across the country. He shipped it by USPS with a tracking number. The buyer goofed up the address so it was returned to the originating post office where they promptly lost it. (or stole it)
They offered to refund the shipping cost. My son was apparently persistent enough that they refunded the value of the knife.
Kind of related- Have been running 8nto packages from amazon “getting lost” during shipping. It gets tracked to some town or city, then doesn’t move from there and several days later get an email telling me the packagE has been lost “in transit”.
So I cancel, get reimbursed, then receive another email asking that if the package happens to,show up to please contact Amazon so I can be recharged.
Several times now in recent years this has happend.
Might be more information here. I think that the front of the letter is photographed but I suspect that you have to be Law enforcement to try to access this info. (Ricin sent to the President in a letter for example.) Good luck, I hope they find or deliver your letter! Might be more info in one of these links.
https://www.gocomet.com/blog/usps-tracking-number/
https://www.letter-track.com/
They will do it for a court order. Doubt you could get one though.
Never ever send anything to the government, federal, state or local without a tracking number and a signature requirement.
Yes, it will cost you more but at least you can prove you sent it.
Sending it electronically if you can will also create a trail.
Sadly fax is usually not possible any more.
Technically, the USPS claims they can.
As a practical matter? No. They would simply send a Be On The Lookout note to each postal facility that the mail could have gone to, but those are mostly ignored and only if someone runs across it and cares about it will it resurface.
Never send anything you care about by USPS without a tracking number. I’ve heard stories of carriers and employees trashing mail if it doesn’t have a tracking numbers.
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).
There’s a lot to joke about. But not the postal inspectors.
They protect First Class mail. The USPS handles tons of junk, and packages (not well). But First Class/certified/registered/insured mail?
FAFO. The postal inspectors will find you, and they will get you.
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.