By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews
YACHATS – When Yachats’ postmaster Chanda Kowitz left the position for undisclosed reasons at the beginning of the year a sudden and unwelcome change occurred — scores of packages were suddenly being returned to sender without recipients receiving notification they had arrived.
In the days that followed, postal workers explained to customers there would be a strict adherence to U.S. Postal Service regulations about where a post office box number was written on an address to be delivered by Amazon, United Parcel Service or Federal Express. If incorrect the Yachats staff was instructed to return them to the sender.
For years Yachats’ staff would work around that by knowing which residents had which post office boxes. Until a new postmaster is hired, the Yachats office is being overseen by the Waldport postmaster.
Two signs were placed on Yachats’ post office windows and bulletin boards giving customers instructions on how to adhere to USPS regulations on post office boxes and addressing.
Whether the instructions were unclear, sudden or a case of not everyone getting the word, arriving packages continued to be returned, igniting a brushfire of bewilderment and complaint from customers on social media. Some advised contacting Oregon’s U.S. senators to see if they could rectify the situation.
Former postmaster Jeff Davis of Yachats even weighed in on social media to say regulations on domestic mail required parcels be held for 10 days before being returned or that the postmaster may choose to hold them for 30 days, especially if contacted by a customer. He did however add a caveat.
“This rule, in respect to a street address that hasn’t set up delivery, but is addressed to that street address must be held at least 10 days before being returned,” Davis wrote. “Unless it is Express mail, which is returned after 5 days. When there is someone who only has P.O. box service, it is extremely helpful to add your P.O. box number in some way to alert the clerk who is working the parcels.”
The social media fervor has mostly died down but more than a few customers are still running into snags. Some are cancelling deliveries and others are traveling to the Willamette Valley to get what they need.
“I’ve had three packages sent back that were from Amazon,” Dian Nuxoll said outside post office this week. “I didn’t put the P.O. box on them because I wanted them delivered to the house. Recently I just started cancelling them.”
Lance Johnson had one package returned to Amazon, he said during a stop at the post office. Now he writes his P.O. box followed by the street address – “I think that’s the key,” he said. “It was for me anyway.”
John May had packages returned but said after reading the notice at the post office he simply adjusted his delivery address.
“We just re-did it,” May said. “We heard people were complaining that ‘They used to know our name.’ Well, we have new people – just play by the rules.”
A recent letter to the editor published in the YachatsNews from Vic Lum said he overheard a postal employee advising a customer to have the seller reship a returned item with the proper address or get a refund. Lum said he tried that in the past and found the seller unresponsive and that neither the item or his money was ever recovered.
USPS response
Local postal employees are not allowed to speak to the media so all questions must be directed to regional USPS spokesperson for Oregon, Kimberly Frum.
After looking into the issues at the Yachats’ post office, Frum responded via email to say employees at the post office are now following established nationwide policy and that packages can be returned to the sender for a variety of reasons.
“In this case, the affected customers use a P.O. Box as their primary method of receiving mail but have been using their street address instead of their P.O. Box address for package deliveries,” Frum wrote. “Ensuring customers use their proper mailing address is critical for timely and accurate delivery of mail.”
Customers who use a P.O. box as their main mail delivery method should always use their P.O. box address, not their physical street address, for deliveries, she said. Some companies don’t accept P.O. box addresses and there is an alternative addressing method available.
There are two ways to properly address items for P.O. boxes, Frum explained. The first option is for the majority of mail such as magazines, bills, letters, and the like. The second option is only for packages and only when a shipper will not accept a P.O. box as an address.
The information was shared in the notifications placed at the Yachats post office, Frum said, and they are as follows:
Option 1: For the majority of “regular” mail:
Customer name
P.O. Box 123456
Yachats, Or. 97498
Option 2: Include the customer’s street address and the P.O. box number:
Customer Name
123 Main St. # 123456
Yachats, Or. 97498
The majority of post office box customers can sign up for Informed Delivery, a free and optional notification feature which allows customers to see a daily preview of what is coming to their box as well as manage their package deliveries.
The return of prescription medications has also vexed some Yachats residents.
But Frum said any returns has to do with proper addressing, not what type of prescription it is.
“… I can tell you the majority of prescription medications can be sent through the mail,” Frum said. “Also, post office employees have no way of knowing what is inside packages or mail pieces when they arrive at the local post office.
“So if these items were returned it is only because they were not addressed properly and not based on contents,” Frum said. “Customers should check with their medication provider on available shipping options and to ensure the proper address (one of the examples above) is on file with the provider.”
In closing, Frum said USPS Publication 52 explains in detail what can and can’t be sent through the mail, including medications. It is also important to know the mailer is fully responsible for ensuring compliance with Postal Service regulations, all other federal and local laws and regulations when it comes to sending medications through the mail.
- Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com
Thanks for the follow-up. However, Frum’s comments wholly ignore the reality that items shipped from Amazon never indicate the shipper until after completing a purchase, and that recipients have no idea which items shipped UPS will be handed off at the last mile to USPS. Furthermore, if only a PO Box address is used, Amazon will ship to the PO, rather than to the home address which is generally preferred by recipients. Also, explain to me how it is cost-effective for some UPS parcels to be handed off to USPS for final delivery and others are not; I have had this happen, often on the same when UPS is already coming to my house to deliver (my UPS driver was similarly perplexed when I asked him this very question). Furthermore, why is USPS adding burdensome contracts with Amazon/UPS when offices like Yachats can barely handle their regular duties.
There was no excuse for the way the changes were made by the Postal Service. Not giving prior notice, i.e. two weeks or more and also putting up confusing instructions taped to the windows were ridiculous and not very professional. We are the customers and deserve better service. We did nothing wrong but were punished by prior local Postal staff procedures not being up to speed with the regulations.
We’re glad things have settled down and hopefully there will be no more unannounced procedural changes without due notice to we the customers.
Some communities have “postal annexes” instead of federally owned and poorly managed post offices. I believe some thought should be given to a privately-owned or city-owned store such as this. It is ridiculous to think that we have to pay for a P.O. box, not get home delivery, and then fall under the harsh rule of some nearby master. We deserve better and are better than this.
If I understand correctly packages are to be held for 10 days. Mine arrived at Yachats post office at 7:30 a.m. and was returned by 11:30 the same day. I had been tracking my package. Sooooo frustrated.
Send your tracking info and comments to Sen Merkley. https://www.merkley.senate.gov/contact/
The problem has not gone away. It continues to be a mess.
I used to have a post box in Waldport and I moved it to Yachats for the very same reason — the staff at Waldport didn’t seem to give a darned and would ship packages back the very same day. What happened to community spirit? Bring back Angie or the last lady who managed the post office office so well.
They just had stacks and stacks of W-2’s sent back to senders. Not very nice.
Enforcing the requirement to have a box number on the label, while ignoring the requirement to retain parcels for the requisite number of days, isn’t strick enforcement of the rules. It is cherry-picking the rules, which isn’t rule based at all.
The post office has contracts with third-party carriers that allow those carriers drop packages off at the post office rather than at the street address. What the post office hasn’t done however, is to establish a quality control point to ensure that the packages that are dropped off at the post office by third-party carriers are deliverable to a P.O. box rather than a street address. It is only after the third-party carriers have gone that the post office begins the process of sorting those packages, and sending them back.
I was expecting a package from Australia, and I was expecting delivery at my home by a third-party carrier. It was instead dropped at the post office, where it spent a few hours before being returned to the sender. But the package never arrived back in Australia. It was instead misdirected to Miami, where it is remains lost, and the subject of a post office wide search.
So I ordered a second package from Australia, but this time included my P.O. box. It arrived at the post office, and was immediately returned to the sender. When I inquired the next day about the package, the Yachats post office staff were accusatory, and extremely unhelpful, so I contacted the Waldport post office. The Waldport post office did a little digging and found that the package was labeled correctly, and was still sitting in the Yachats post office. The Waldport post office sent an employee to Yachats to search for the package, and found it, and put it in my box.
FYI. I followed the address rules even before the change in management, I would always get my parcels delivered in a parcel box. They would kindly leave a key in my small PO Box and I walk over and get my package out of the parcel box. Mind you, I always order items delivered in a small packages so that they would fit in boxes. However, the temporary workers keep all my packages behind the counter so I have to stand in line during business hours for pick up. I’m not available during those hours to do that. I have reached out to the United States postmaster headquarters and they said that they are looking into it and I got a reply that they are working on it but no follow up. It is a great inconvenient for me now. Still patiently waiting …
I had an Amazon package, thankfully with tracking information which shipped USPS to our post office box. It showed that it arrived in Yachats and held for pickup at 9:30 a.m. Jan. 26. Picked up mail at 12:30 but no notice of a package in our box. Asked at counter, but it wasn’t easily found and she was so busy I said no problem I’ll check tomorrow. Went in during package pickup time on Saturday. No slip and line was very long so decided to wait for Monday. Monday, no slip, so lined up and asked if there was a package for us. She found it — marked on the end of the box, post office box and Jan. 26. She asked if there was a slip in our box and I said no. Gentleman was just heading out to put mail in boxes so she thought he probably had the slip. Yeah, Tuesday, no slip. Maybe someone just messed up, it happens, or would it have been returned to sender days later if I hadn’t actually asked for it. P.S.: I apologize for not knowing the lady’s name at our post office because she has been awesome!