After using the United States Postal Service to send a package like usual, the last two weeks have been increasingly frustrating. It highlights the downfall of a once-trustworthy public institution millions rely on thanks to being targeted politically.
After getting settled into the new place, I decided to tackle a project that has been on hold for a few years now: resurrecting the 1991 Macintosh Classic. I contacted Thomas at Amiga of Rochester, who did some troubleshooting on the Classic’s logic board back in 2023 when it began to act up, to see if he could take another look at it.
I removed the logic board from the machine, carefully sealed it in an anti-static bag, and packed it well in a random cardboard box for its 800-mile journey to Rochester, New York. Then, just like I’ve done on countless other occasions, I went to the local post office to ship the package out for said journey. The clerk entered the destination, weighed the package, and gave me a couple options for shipping. I chose the cheapest option, the “Ground Advantage” class, as I normally have in the past.
The package was expected to arrive in Rochester on August 20th. The day before the package was to arrive, Thomas said he had blocked out some time to begin working on troubleshooting the ailed logic board as soon as it arrived.
After work on August 20th, I was greeted to a couple messages from Thomas: “Welp, looks like it’s not coming today despite it being in Rochester.” “Hey, your package is being held for lack of postage?”
I immediately checked the tracking and, sure enough, it was being held. The reason: “Delayed for postage assessment, held awaiting payment. USPS has not received a postage payment for your item. … It is being held awaiting payment and cannot be processed. If the postage is received, the package will be delivered to the recipient; otherwise the package will be considered Postal Service property under USPS regulations and will not be delivered.”
The nightmare had begun.
I had the email receipt from the United States Postal Service as proof that I paid for postage, and I’d been using the tracking number from that email to receive updates about its status. The receipt also detailed the shipping cost, weight, expected delivery date, and the payment method I used to pay for the postage. You would think all of that would be easily tracked by USPS so they could confirm I paid for the postage, clear the parcel for delivery and send it on the rest of its way to Thomas.
However, like many issues where companies screw up, it wouldn’t be that easy.
I tried to solicit support online using the “Email us” section of the USPS website. Sadly, it was completely useless. When you try to contact them about where your package might be, it just gives you the same information you’ll find on the tracking page. From there you can go to a FAQs page that explains what all the different statuses and errors mean, but oddly the error message I received wasn’t listed on there. There is no direct email address for contacting a customer service representative at USPS nor is there a chat function, two things most companies and government agencies have had for some time now.
Since there was no way to contact them online, I called the customer service 800 number listed on the email receipt — 800-275-8777 (800-ASK-USPS). Like most organizations, they have an automated phone tree that wasn’t helpful. Thankfully, after some trial and error, I was able to find a combination that got me in touch with a human customer service representative.
Unfortunately, said representative wasn’t exactly helpful, either. He explained what the error message meant, and clarified that packages flagged for insufficient postage usually receive a second scan to verify whether it can continue on or needs to be held. The representative had no way of telling me when my package would get its second scan. He recommended signing up for text and email alerts that automatically update me about each step of the package’s journey.
It did not take long for the second scan to happen. According to the tracking page, it was scanned again at 4:24 p.m. August 21. Unfortunately, the package was still to be held for the same exact error.
The next day, I returned to the very post office where I shipped the package from. The clerk had never seen the message before and said she’d look into it further and escalate the matter through the chain of command to ensure it was addressed.
Fast forward to today: August 29. The logic board was shipped more than two weeks ago, and it was supposed to arrive at Thomas’ doorstep more than a week ago. There hadn’t been any change in status of my package. The tracking page still shows the same error message, and the post office clerk who helped me previously never heard anything from her superiors.
I went to the post office today and asked for a supervisor. The supervisor told me he’d flag the package to be returned to me, and once I got it back that I could try sending it again. In other words, I might have to pay again to have the package shipped! At least once I get the logic board back it will be in my possession instead of being considered “Postal Service property.”
The entire process has been extremely frustrating. Getting help from the United States Postal Service can be a challenge, and often the representatives are either unhelpful or unable to resolve the situation. For a government-funded service that several million rely on each day, I’m very disappointed in how this situation has been handled.
I’ve always been an avid supporter of the United States Postal Service. Until the beginning of 2025, I rarely had an issue with USPS — despite sending and receiving packages quite often, especially for another hobby of mine. The only issue I had prior to January 2025 was one package got delivered to the wrong address and was never able to be recovered. However, I had sent several packages that all got delivered in a timely manner without damage and received at least a hundred others without fail. On one instance, when I bought the ThinkPad T42 (RIP), it even came from Canada without any issues. I frequently bought things from a small business located 60 miles away and the items would typically arrive within three (3) business days of placing my order, as the package would typically go from their post office to the local distribution center, then to our local post office from there.
Beginning in early 2025, however, my experience with the Postal Service began to sour.
The packages from the aforementioned small business that used to take maximum three (3) business days to arrive now took more than two weeks to show up. Instead of going from the initial post office to the regional distribution center in Columbia, Missouri, the packages would go to a different regional distribution center in Kansas City. From there, they would then somehow end up in New York, then New Jersey, before being returned to Kansas City, forwarded on to Columbia where it would eventually be sent to my local post office for the final leg of its journey. Sometimes the route would change; On one occasion, the package went from Kansas City up north to Minneapolis, southwest to Utah, then back to Kansas City before Columbia. Mind you, these packages are going thousands of miles out of their way — the seller is only 60 miles away and the packages used to arrive within three days. Now it takes two weeks.
Then there has been this whole fiasco, where USPS claims I didn’t pay for something that I have proof that I paid for. I bought the shipping label from the local post office, which the email receipt from the United States Postal Service corroborates. The receipt contains the same tracking number that has been used to monitor the package throughout its whole journey.
I’m going to break a cardinal rule of my blog here and editorialize and even get political a bit, but I think I know exactly what is going on. And I don’t like it one bit.
The decline of the Postal Service, in my experience, began in early 2025. What else happened in that same time period? A certain politician who hasn’t been friendly toward the Postal Service, and their party wants to privatize USPS just like everything else, was inaugurated for a second term as “President” of the United States of America. This politician, and his party, have weakened the Postal Service in an effort to gut mail-in voting. They view their efforts, however, as a “kill two birds with one stone” approach.
In addition to disenfranchising a number of citizens, that party views weakening the Postal Service as a step toward their goal of privatizing it. They want all public services — like the Postal Service — to be privately ran so they (or, rather, their connections — such as lobbyists, or family and friends) can benefit financially from it. The excuse of privatizing business to “save people money” or “improve service” are lousy ones. Try sending a package through the United Parcel Service (UPS) or Federal Express (FedEx) and you’ll find it will cost much more than USPS, and it won’t get there any quicker.
It appears late-stage capitalism and the Enshittification of Everything™ has finally hit the United States Postal Service.
These politicians and their supporters want to ruin the United States Postal Service’s reputation so people will want to switch to its private competitors, or be more likely to support privatizing the Postal Service under the aforementioned guise of “improving service.” I don’t buy it. Neither should you. We should demand better.
This post was written using the “SuperSE,” a 1988 Macintosh SE with a Mobius ‘030 accelerator, in Microsoft Word 4.0.