By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews
YACHATS – Any perceived lull in complaints about how the Yachats post office is handling mail since the departure of the former postmaster now seems more of an eye-of-the-storm situation.
The gale of complaints on social media is building with calls to contact a U.S. senator and possibly get the Yachats city council involved because it seems the new default for a lot of mail delivery is “return to sender.”
While a U.S. Postal Service official says everything is running as it should be under the temporary management of Waldport postmaster Tamara Hamilton, a former postmaster says that’s poppycock.
“I truly believe that (Hamilton) has made these decisions on her own and (YachatsNews) is getting the run around by whoever you are talking to at the postal service because they’re not following regulations,” said Jeff Davis, who was the Yachats postmaster for 11 years before retiring in 2021.
Davis, who worked at USPS nearly 35 years, said the agency’s operations manual and several others clearly state how policy is being ignored in Yachats for the sake of expediency.
Any mail deemed “undeliverable” must be held for the “addressee” at the post office, Davis said citing regulations 816.33 and 816.25 from the USPS manual. The person then has five days to pick it up. If it is not picked up, then it is returned after 15 days, Davis said. The domestic mail manual also references a 10-day hold.
“Well, they’re not doing either one,” Davis said. “When I ran that post office, I just put in a 10-day hold. And all those packages go to a specific place and the address is written on the parcel.”
Customers could then give a tracking number to indicate the package was at the post office, which on Davis’s watch resulted in all mail reaching its destination, he said.
“This postmaster has decided she doesn’t want to do that because she’s just trying to save some time, which is ridiculous,” Davis said. “And again, the people who are telling (YachatsNews) that they are following the regulations – they’re lying to you. Because they are not.”
Davis said the USPS contract driver who delivers packages to people’s homes, has been around for some time and knows which customers have a post office box and has been giving them back to the clerks for handling. But rather than look up the box number or place them in a 10-day hold, they have been told to just return them, Davis said.
Social media erupts
The most recent thread of complaints on social media began with a post by Michael Hatten who posted a photograph of a letter seemingly perfectly addressed that has been labeled returned to sender by the post office.
“What in the hell do you have to do to get mail?” Hatten wrote above the photo. More than 50 people responded to vent their frustrations or wonder what can be done to remedy the situation.
Comments to the post included – “Unreal,” “There is a problem in Yachats,” “We’ve had problems too. Very frustrating,” “I read the paper at the post office and thought it showed the P.O. box number after the street, exactly as his mail is addressed,” “It does. I checked. Talked to the Waldport guy and he told me either way will be fine. I had a package returned too…” “maddening,” and “This is beyond the pale.”
“It has nothing to do with how things are addressed,” was another reply. “It has everything to do with the Waldport postmaster taking mail from Yachats to Waldport and returning it. I check my tracking number, and it says delivered to Yachats, and the next day ‘Return to sender’ from Waldport.”
“The question is how do we get it fixed?” another said.
Tales of woe about returned packages and letters are woven throughout the thread as does advice to contact the office of Sen. Jeff Merkeley, D-Ore. One person questioned whether it was time for the city to take action?
“Maybe this should be a councilor concern at the next council meeting,” they wrote. “The issue seems to be seriously affecting how the residents of this town do business. Just a thought.”
Councilor Catherine Whitten-Carey weighed in to say she had phoned the senator’s office and is waiting to hear back. Others who had contacted Merkley, posted boilerplate letters from him that did not address the issues in Yachats.
Neither Whitten-Carey nor the YachatsNews has received a response from Merkley’s office. Meanwhile, there’s an item on Wednesday’s Yachats city council agenda called “Post office concerns.”
Davis told YachatsNews that he also encourages people to reach out to Merkley because otherwise it will get ignored.
“Being a senator, he has a pass to inform the Postal Board of Governors what’s going on, and they oversee the post office from a congressional level,” Davis said. “And I guarantee you, the post office doesn’t like it when people call the senator’s office. Email or call. They keep files of all of this. And if only one person complains probably nothing is going to happen. But if everybody does, then that puts it a whole different level.”
But most important, Davis said, is taking a screenshot of the delivery tracking number and the reason why it was sent back because that is the proof USPS needs that packages are not being processed according to regulations. The postal service only keeps the information available to the public for so long before customers must submit forms to get that information, so a screenshot is best.
Returned packages and letters are not the only issue customers have run into since postmaster Chanda Kowitz was removed for undisclosed reasons at the beginning of the year.
A recent letter to YachatsNews asked for the contact information of the USPS spokesperson the newspaper sends questions to. That resident said the post office box they had for 12 years was rented out from under them, even though they had paid another year’s rent.
“We just need resolution so we can continue receiving meds and business documents,” the letter said.
USPS response
The regional USPS spokesperson for Oregon, Kimberly Frum has previously responded to inquiries from YachatsNews to say employees at the post office are following established national policy.
More recently, when asked about staffing at the Yachats post office, Frum said it is fully staffed and “under skilled management” but did not give details on when a permanent postmaster might be hired to replace Hamilton who is not the Yachats postmaster but the “officer in charge.”
When shown a photo of Hatten’s “Return to sender” letter, which seemingly followed the instructions posted at the post office and in line with what Frum said was correct for “the majority of regular mail.”
Customer name
P.O. Box 123456
Yachats, Or. 97498
Frum said she would look into it. She later responded – “Unfortunately, the customer used the addressing format which is to be used only when a shipper will not accept a PO Box as an address,” she said. “It’s not to be used for letters. It’s likely the customer misunderstood/misread, and this was an honest error.”
Frum was also asked via email about Davis’s comments that YachatsNews was being given the run-around about following regulations, and that is likely Frum does not know the answers to questions and is relying on Hamilton for the answers.
“In Yachats, the Postal Service uses Post Office Box numbers to deliver the mail,” Frum replied. “Our automation and modern sorting depend on standardized addressing formats. Ballots, mail orders, and prescription drug companies and every other mailer depends on this information.
“While previous employees may have possessed the institutional knowledge to bypass this requirement, it is unreasonable to expect new employees to redirect incorrectly addressed mail. We encourage all customers to use their proper address on all correspondence which aligns with national postal standards.”
- Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
The way that the above letter is addressed, indicates that it is a trailer park, or apartment with 448 units. No where does it indicate a “P.O. Box 448”. They need to correctly write “PO Box 448” above the city.
Yes, I thought the same thing!
I wonder if there are better examples than this or if everyone complaining has just been getting away with lazily writing their addresses?
That is correct. Does not say PO box anywhere. Also, last address written on letter is the delivery address. So, returning this letter, “undeliverable as addressed unable to forward is correct. Nobody has the time to look up a PO box. Way too much work to do, like sorting thousands of parcels etc. Patrons have a responsibility to address mail correctly
Hmmmmm, this isn’t the only place this is happening. In Bandon we have had them return packages if they aren’t picked up within 3 days!
If the letter that is pictured is supposed to going to a PO Box it is nowhere near being “perfectly addressed”. It is addressed to a street box delivery, not a PO Box. I suspect that previous employees were redirecting bad mail like this as a favor to the resident so they never had any incentive to use the correct format.
Incorrect guys/gals. The post office in any city USA allows use of the format shown in the photo, because some organizations dont let you use PO boxes, and this is the way around it, approved and initiated by the Post office.
I greatly appreciate the USPS and am sympathetic to staffing issues. However, the last few months have been terrible. Starting with a courier, realistically, the only plausible scenario, committing a hit a run on my vehicle, to continuously receiving mail not associated with my address, undelivered packages with tracking numbers that I have had to argue to be found, and listening to others experiencing similar and other issues. Where did it all go wrong? What can be done?
I just remembered another thing. Last year, USPS sent out an official letter informing patrons that, if they ordered packaged items, the sender of the package HAD to address it as follows:
Name of Postal Patron
Street Address
PO Box (if the patron used a PO Box)
City, State, Zip
The letter advised that any packages NOT addressed like this would be returned to the sender. And, it didn’t matter if the Patron only received mail at their PO Box, and never received mail at their street address. Their address still had to be in this format.
Unfortunately, I cannot remember if this also applied to letters and other enveloped items. But, I’m sure anyone can go online to USPS and get further information.
The postal service in Waldport is just as messed up as Yachats, with many of the same issues. I would like to know when the USPS is going to pay attention, and do something to solve the problems. We have a right to efficient, correct, and proper mail delivery.
And customers have the responsibility to correctly prepare and address their mail to assist the Postal Service in providing said service.
We don’t send mail to ourselves.
The Tidewater post office is the same way, so is Waldport post office. They are being mismanaged by the same person who absolutely doesn’t know what the heck they are doing.
Speaking only for myself, I’ve never had any problems with the Tidewater Post Office.
The Postal Service’s job is to deliver the mail. If people are not getting the mail, and both the address and the PO box number are on the piece of mail, then the Postal Service simply is not doing its job. The excuses from the Postal Service spokeswoman are gibberish. Let’s hope a member of our congressional delegation gets involved and kicks some hindquarters at Postal Service headquarters so that the Postal Service staff on the Oregon coast starts serving the public instead of doing the opposite.
I see the point on letters being returned to sender because of an undeliverable status. I.e a street address that hasn’t set up delivery yet. It would take too much time to look up every letter. However, when the HCR driver returns the undeliverable letters to the hotcase, there are a bunch of letters that gave the po box listed in the address somewhere. The sorting machines at the plant can not decifer the po box and go by the street address. Those letters can be culled out by the clerks without having to look up the po box by customers last name. Then delivered. The parcels are a different matter. POM (Postal Opperations Manual) references two regulations that when combined give us the rules for articles that contain a delivery confirmation number. POM 816.33 state that articles that are in an undeliverable status that contain a tracking number will be handled in POM regulation 816.25. 816.25 states the regulations for holding those articles at the Postoffice on an “Availabe for pickup” status. These are the regulations the Yachats Post Office are not following.
I worked for the USPS for over 26 years. My last 16 years was as a postmaster. When a postmaster has been on site for a long time, they know their customers and know how to reroute the mail. This does cause the customer to be lax on how their mail was addressed. This always cause problems when new employees come on board. Though this is good customer service, it is not the correct process. When we had letters addressed to physical addresses versus a post office box, each letter we routed to the box was stamped with a note to the customer to inform the sender of their proper mailing address. At one time there was a policy called “If you know it, throw it” meaning employees were to deliver the mail to the customer regardless of how it was addressed if they were “sure” of the correct address. Postal regulations require mail to be delivered “as addressed”. In fact, it’s a crime to purposely misdeliver mail. Returning it to sender is a correct course of action. Something the post office could do is “link” the physical address to the post office box. This would cause sorting machines to sort it to the post office box automatically.
I live in Yachats and for the past 2 months now we have not been receiving mail in our mailbox and letters are being returned to sender with yellow stickers from the post office stating “return to sender, no mail receptacle, unable to forward” or “return to sender, not deliverable as addressed, unable to forward”. Prior to December 20th, we didn’t have any issues with receiving mail in our mailbox. However, we are still able to receive Amazon deliveries to the mailbox or house if the package is too large for the mailbox. I’ve spoken with the Yachats post office clerk and was told they don’t know why the mail is being returned to sender when I showed them pictures I received from my family of the returned mail, and the clerk agreed the mail was addressed correctly. Apparently I am not the only one that is experiencing mail issues in Yachats and really hope this is fixed soon.
I had a package returned to sender. It had both street and p.o. box on the label. My tracking showed it was delivered at 7:30 a.m and was returned at 11:30 a.m.
It was not held and no attempt to contact me was made. It was Christmas gifts and I’m now very reluctant to purchase anything that I can’t get delivered to my house.
USPS is a failed business
Same things happening at Waldport post office only you aren’t allowed to talk about it on the community page. That letter given as an example is not addressed correctly as the #448 could mean a space number or apartment number. It should read P.O. Box 448.
I’ve 23 years of experience using the Yachats Post Office. When Jeff Davis was postmaster the number of patrons with boxes was smaller. He and the longtime staff knew most everyone so misaddressed mail or packages still mostly got delivered without having to be returned. The area population has grown, the junk mail which clutters up the entire UPS system has ballooned and we’ve experienced a lot of staff turnover.
Early on I found some companies I was doing business with did not decide whether a delivery would be made via U.S. mail or a service like FedEx and UPS until the package was boxed. I was advised by more than one shipper to include both my physical address and PO Box when ordering, and to structure it like this:
Line 1 -John Doe,
Line 2 -xxx W some street,
Line 3- PO Box XXX,
Line 4 – City and State and Zip (or Zip on Line 5).
The explanation given was the USPS looks first for the Zip code then up. In my case
it sees a box number. The delivery services look for a Zip and a physical address. My personal mail uses only a PO Box.
What has not yet been explained is what UPS and FedEx deliveries get made to the Yachats Post Office and than to me while the same day I may also get a direct FedEx or UPS delivery to my home.
I’ve not yet had a box or parcel returned or letter returned when using my address as noted above.
What I’d like fixed is the Yachats postmaster doing something about the restaurant patron parking that now often leaves no place to park and pick up mail. The little Postal Parking sign doesn’t work.
We complain about postal costs but do some checking on what some European and Asian countries and elsewhere are paying for first class mail. Budget breakers. And at least ours doesn’t get stolen or opened and the contents gone through (hopefully).