Another Don’t Be a Mule Moment: The United States Postal Service

This, my dear readers, is a good one. It has gone on for almost six months, and just (almost) reached a conclusion.

I will be as brief as possible, because explaining the entire story would take hours.

I sold somebody a laptop over the internet, and I sent it through the USPS. Since it was an expensive item, I bought $500 worth of insurance.

As it turns out, the post office claims that the package was “undeliverable as addressed“, and the laptop never arrived to the person that I sold it to.

I had to refund the guy’s money, and then I went to the post office to ask them what to do. They told me that since it was marked “undeliverable as addressed” that it would be returned to me. And not to worry.

So I waited…and waited…and waited.

Well, before the time expired on being able to file an insurance claim on it, I went ahead and filed, because I still had not received the laptop back.

Guess what? They denied the claim. They said insurance did not cover me if the item was “undeliverable as addressed”. During this time, I had also been calling the local office of the USPS Consumer Affairs Division. I told them if I can’t get reimbursed for the laptop, then could someone please find my laptop for me.

They told me to appeal the claim. I did. Guess what. It was denied again. I even wrote them in my appeal that I understand them not wanting to reimburse me, but I just want someone to find my laptop for me.

So I appealed the appeal. To back up a little, each appeal took about 30 minutes to an hour to prepare (tons of documentation needed) and each t call to the Consumer Affairs Division took anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour (those people never pick up the phone). I must have called them 10 times.

My last option was to appeal the claim to Washington, DC. I did. And, in a shocking turn of events, I just received a letter from them stating that they are making a “one-time exception” (gee, lucky me) in my case, and sent me a check for $500.

The moral of the story—this whole system of layers and appeals and phone calls and everything else is designed for one thing and one thing only-to get people to give up!

You cannot ever do this! If it was for a $5 item, sure, forget about it. But $500? Please.

When someone is trying to screw you, or doesn’t want to help you, you have to remain persistent. You have to fight back. Do not be a mule! Do not give up.
Persistence pays off.

Now, the only problem is that they made the check out to the name of my business and the bank won’t cash it.

Aaaaaagggghhhhhhh!