After my prior bad experience with the post office, you might have thought I had learned my lesson. Well I have now. I sent a check priority mail to purchase a used vehicle. The only reason I sent it priority mail was because the leasing company said they needed it immediately. Had I sent the check and paperwork regular mail, it would have been there by the end of the week and everything would have been fine. But as you can see, it was nearly three weeks late.
And this time, I was in it for a lot more than $5.75. I waited stress-fully for a week for the leasing company to notify me that they had received payment. At this point, I needed the sale to be completed as much as they did because the safety inspection is only good for thirty days and the leasing company takes two weeks to send the bill of sale. If the time went beyond 30 days or I put more than 1000 miles on the vehicle, I would need to go back and pay for another inspection.
When I went to the bank to wire the money, I found out that it was $31 to cancel my check. It’s another $30 to wire funds. So now the total is $66.75, all thanks to the post office’s false advertising of priority mail.
It’s not only priority mail that’s a problem. I asked Freedom-Pop not to ship a replacement phone for the broken one they shipped until after I returned from vacation. So they promptly shipped it a few days before we left. I tried everything I could to get the post office to hold delivery. I stopped my mail for two weeks. I tried contacting the post office and leaving notes with the tracked item. Everything failed. Sure enough they left it at my door, conveniently advertising to the whole world I’m not home.
In this situation, I had absolutely no control, but the lesson I’ve learned is clear. Do not use the post office for anything other than regular mail. Go with one of the other shipping services.