Back in September, my regular statement from two credit card companies, plus my oil bill, never showed up in my post office box. When I got assessed a late fee in my October billing, I called the credit card companies, who said they’d mailed the bills three weeks prior to their being due.
On Oct. 21, I asked Mary Therkelsen, the interim (now permanent) Eastsound postmaster, if she could track the mailed bills. She said there was nothing to be done until the bills showed up and she could look at the postmark date – frustrating!
But since then, I’ve kept my bills by the phone to remind myself to send payment, even if the bills don’t come on time. This involves checking by phone with the credit card companies to make sure of the due date; but I don’t want my payment credit to be called into question any further than it already has. I’ve been informed that if I have another late payment, my interest rate will go up.
Then, on Dec. 26, we got a notice to pick up mail for our post office box. The bundle of mail was postmarked the first week in September, and the two credit card notices were among them (also my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah thank you, which I’d wondered why this unusually polite kid had not acknowledged our gift.)
When we went to the Post Office on Dec. 30 to ask about it, Mike Haugen said there were a number of post office box customers that had experienced the same problem and the Post Office was taking steps to rectify the situation.
We asked for a letter to our creditors explaining the situation and Mike assured us that letters would be written that we could pick up the next day. Mike said that they would not write a general letter that we could copy to the affected creditors, but that they would need specific information from those creditors to write the specific letters. I left the account numbers, the late fees charged and the addresses for the letters. He said we could pick them up the next day, Dec. 31.
On Dec. 31, we got a phone message from Mary Therkelsen, saying she understood that we’d had a problem at the time we came to pick up our mail and acknowledged that “we did have a problem at that time with this group of second notices.” She asked us to call her back before 4 p.m.
On Jan. 2, I called and asked Mary Therkelsen if she would be writing the letters acknowledging that our mail, dated from Sept. 3 to Sept. 8, had not been delivered to us until Dec. 30. She said that normally this was not done, that she understood Mike Haugen had done this in the past, and that she would need to contact her superior before doing so. When I brought up that I had contacted her personally in October about not receiving mail, she said that I had not made it clear that I wanted her to check if any mail was being held – otherwise she would have checked. Basic customer service would suggest to me that, before turning a customer away, the first thing I would do is check to see if mail for our box was being held.
I complained about her reluctance to acknowledge the Post Office’s part in our delayed mail and damaged credit history, and she said, “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
This is the cowardly lackey’s attempt to protect their own reputation, rather than offer a sincere apology for their own errors. It’s even worse than an apology offered with excuses for damaging someone.
Yes, we all make mistakes, we’re only human, but client service means delivering on your obligation, and rectifying the situation if an error has been made.
Mary Therkelsen’s attitude seemed to convey that the most important consideration was that it was not her fault, and that she was dismayed that she had to hear complaints of mistakes. In contrast, Mike Haugen’s sincere apology and attempts to rectify the situation were what postal customers should hear when they take their complaints to the parties responsible.
Mary Therkelsen did call her superior and received hispermission to write a letter acknowledging the problems caused by the 15-week delay in delivering our mail. The supervisor’s name is Les Stewart, Manager of Postal Operations, and his address is 415 First Ave. N. Seattle WA 98109-9992.
One final note: Mike Haugen told us on Dec. 30 that many postal customers in Eastsound had experienced this problem, of mail being held. If others have suffered credit history damage as a result, I suggest you contact the Post Office and Les Stewart at the above address.
