Update: Alert readers point out the express mail package has the wrong address.
Reader: Customer error: watch video, correct address for GIA is
Address: 5345 Armada Dr, Carlsbad, CA 92008
That would/should have been processed by the San Diego P&DC. The carrier in Carlsbad should have known the correct address and delivered it. Why it is in LA is the mystery, but there can be many mysteries at USPS.
Reader: As clerk for 33 years, I say bogus. Not that packages don’t go missing because like every company, PO has some thieves just looking for something to take.
But he’s been cutting corners using Express with a limit of $5,000. Registered mail [goes hand to hand, everyone that touches it must sign for it] is normally used for jewels and has limit in millions. Costs more as you’d expect.
Reader: Window clerks do not “verify” addresses or zip codes. Plus, an experienced window clerk would have recommended REGISTERED MAIL.
August 3, 2015 NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) – A Midstate jeweler has filed a claim after an insured valuable package was lost.
Joey Nunley, co-owner of Prima Jewelers, said he’s not only out money, but time and trust in the policy of the postal service.
On May 15, Nunley said he express-mailed a package with $50,000 worth of diamonds to the Gemological Institute of America in California for a grading report analysis.
“And they just mysteriously went missing … on May 16 in Los Angeles, CA,” Nunley said. “And at this point, we don’t know quite where they are.
Nunley said he insured the package for $5,000, the maximum value the post office allows for an overnight package.
He also said, like he’s always done, he had the postal clerk double check every detail.
“I ask them to verify the zip code. I ask them to verify the address, so it’s a legitimate address, so that there isn’t any uncalled for instances. And that’s probably why I haven’t had a problem for 20 years until today,” Nunley said.
The package never made it.
WMC Action News 5 – Memphis, Tennessee
Midstate jeweler says package of diamonds worth $50K has gone missing
The USPS website says “Get maximum security for your valuable items. Registered Mail items can be insured for up to $50,000 at your Post Office™.”
Maybe it was higher in the past.
If the package is “sitting in a Los Angeles Post Office marked undeliverable as addressed”, they know where it is. Why would they pay the insurance if they know where it is? Why isn’t it being returned to the sender? That’s some crack investigative work by the news team at channel 4.
Customer error: watch video, correct address for GIA is
Address: 5345 Armada Dr, Carlsbad, CA 92008
That would/should have been processed by the San Diego P&DC. The carrier in Carlsbad should have known the correct address and delivered it. Why it is in LA is the mystery, but there can be many mysteries at USPS.
99.9 percent of jewelers send their parcels via domestic registered mail. It is the most safest way to ship anything with value. Every person who touches registered mail must be cleared when it changes hands. The last person to touch the parcel without it being cleared or delivered with the customers signature is accountable and liable for that registered parcel. Why would anyone send a fifty thousand dollar parcel any other way? This person is either an idiot or a fraud. I will put my money on fraud.
It is not true any more Registerd mail takes for ever to arrive, and not always scanned at every point. Most of the cages are left unlocked all day any carrier or clerk walk in and take it.
Further window clerk has to type the address in the computer and can tell if the address is wrong. Customer is not at fault, it is usps,s lousy job.
I blame the f*ing Window Supvr for pushing the clerks for revenue and not service. I’d bet that the window clerk recommended Express Mail instead of Registered Mail because of the difference in revenue. Although the sender is no f*ing genius either. He should have insisted on the safest service not the so-called fastest.
the story also says the package is marked “Undeliverable as addressed”, yet the Post Office was going to pay him $5,000?? What the Hell, the package would come back to him, anyway. No claim is handled that fast, and would never be paid unless there was a total loss, which there wasn’t.
Firstly, the mailer should have sent the package Registered Mail, which has a maximum insurability of $25,000, after which the mailer’s own insurance kicks in, in case of a loss. Understanding the mailer’s need to get it delivered faster, Express should have done the trip, and was insured up to the $5,000 maximum. As a business, he should have commercial insurance, which should cover the difference, the same as would be done with Registered. If he has no personal insurance, he is a poor businessman. We have a jeweler, who would send items Registered or Express, but only write in a value of $100, even though the item was worth more. He did so to save money on insurance fees, and said his insurance would cover any losses. The DMM states insured/Registered items must be declared at “full value”, but our managers let him slide, though he was cheating us out of fees the way he worked. I told him that if he ever had a loss, even if his insurance company would pay any part of the claim, they would need proof of mailing, and his insurance receipt would show the value of the package was only $100, as he declared…not whatever value it actually was.
The claims from this customer don’t pass the smell test IMO. Valuable jewelry and you only insure for 10% of the value?! I would think you would take a slower delivery method and make sure you are covered for full value. This just seems fishy to me.
Y did he trust anyone with $50.000 worth of diamonds when he was told the maximum insurance coverage is only $5000? View video 4 more detail.
EVERYTHING you said is true. I’m an old timer and I find that our newly hired young people are functionally illiterate. Most of them have never read an entire book in their life and now they are expected to read for 8 hours a day. They are unable to retain any instructions, and are clueless as to the meaning of ” work ethic”.
What is truly sad is the amount of birthday cards, tax refund checks, medicine, and magazines that I find in the NOV (UBBM to you new folks) every day and no one cares. I’m temporarily injured so I’m going through it, but usually our management just throws it away because “we don’t need clerks” so there is no one to check it.
When I retire VERY soon I’ll be paying everything online and I plan to buy a locking mailbox because carriers don’t understand Hold mail, and for the ones that do, the clerks are throwing it into the NOV. I will pray for those I leave behind.
Probably an inside job. I hate to discourage business to the USPS but in this day and age, where employees have next to no sense of integrity toward their jobs and the responsibility that is supposed to come with it, it would take somebody braver than I to ever let the USPS handle anything with that kind of value. Management has ceased in the last fifteen years at least to care about protecting the mail. They are entirely focused on running, pushing CCA’s to the limit, along with the new clerk counterparts, and holding the jobs hostage until regular positions open.
Thus, the CCA letter carrier is intimidated by management to run like a bat out of Hell, are instructed to ignore change of addresses, not go back and retrieve mail they know they misdelivered, and let regular carriers pick up the pieces.
PSE’s (I think that’s the new clerk acronym, correct me if I’m wrong) work some terrible hours, are exhausted, and let’s be honest: there are just some people in the ranks who see registered packages and the return address, and the temptation is too hard to resist. We had a clerk stealing COD money to feed a gambling habit. He was caught and forced to quit. Now, most of us are good people, but I fear our respect for the job is something that will decrease dramatically if not die outright once people in their 20’s and early 30’s represent the majority of the workforce.
These are the smart phone/text while they drive/go to dinner and totally ignore their spouse or date while they play with their phone all the way through dinner/it’s all about me people. They have everything they want because they don’t have a problem charging everything to a stack of credit cards. I just don’t think some people care at all about honesty, and the USPS, being the nation’s largest employer, is a prime example.
I recall way back early in my career ( started in 1984) delivering checks for sold homes, some over 100K, just plain first class. We carriers had a different mind set then, and would never dream of deliberately mishandling mail. Management encouraged route maintenance, and would discipline carriers who couldn’t keep their customers straight or didn’t forward mail properly.
Now, nobody except us old timers give a rat’s ass. It’s the sad truth, and I strongly discourage anybody shipping anything of high value through the USPS.
Well that is being an idiot. That is what registered mail is for. It is always under lock and key and signed for at each transfer. Nobody would be stupid enough to send 50,000 through any delivery service. Me thinks this is fishy.
This was a inside job wich the
Postal inspectors drop the ball
I’m from a small town down in Ms. My mother in the early 60’s ordered a Blanket from Kirschman’s in N.O. The blanket was sent toward her three times. Each time the blanket never made it. I wrote letters and they stated the package was sent three times. We don’t know happen. Then they refused to send another, and no refund.. My intent was to try and find out later years what happened. Finally I was hired by the USPS. I spoke to many about our blanket ordeal. All of them said somebody used that for their winter.
So the USPS has resorted to hiring the worse, those things occur when the GOP based group and their 1% ers changes the rules and the public refuse to address the issues at the polls. Therefore you have mail being handled by unscrupulous people with bad stealing intentions.
It can get worse, please don’t let Staples and the USPS PostMaster General no-bid deal go forward. A letter will cost much more and then we are really in trouble.
Where are the honorable peoples? A federal employee can’t be replaced by a machine, nor someone lacking trust, and packages won’t be stolen or misplaced. The thefts are happening all over America, and its a damn shame. Lowlife people are the ones the USPS are looking for, and they have no good honest intentions.
The packages and the mail entrusted to the USPS care are to arrive at its intended destination. Not some Kleptomaniac hired for low wages, and stealing anything.
The U.S. has lost or had its integrity and moral virtues given away or stolen. Stop the racist things going on and all of this madness will dissolve itself. Sin begets Sin.
Rob,
No matter whats done forward in this matter, Virtually impossible to fix STUPID.
As clerk for 33 years, I say bogus. Not that packages don’t go missing because like every company, PO has some thieves just looking for something to take.
But he’s been cutting corners using Express with a limit of $5,000. Registered mail [goes hand to hand, everyone that touches it must sign for it] is normally used for jewels and has limit in millions. Costs more as you’d expect.
So take the $5,000 and PO will spend many times that tracking down that thief. Likely too late for a recovery of the diamonds though.