Postmaster offers help mail and packages to get to PO Box holders

Let me begin by saying I know this policy of returning items has caused a huge inconvenience for many Waitsburg Postal Customers, and I am sorry. Also, we at the Post Office appreciate the support many of you have extended. The Waitsburg community has been overwhelmingly kind while trying to deal with this problem. After talking with some of our valued customers, we have decided to suspend the practice of returning items through December so patrons will not have to worry about this through the holidays.

Over the past two-plus years, we have been trying to resolve the issue that many of our PO Box customers have when trying to get mail delivered when vendors only take street addresses. We have used stickers asking customers to “Inform Sender that your mail should be addressed to your PO Box” as well as other methods. Many customers have no problems receiving their mail, while others continue to have issues.

The reason this is such a problem is that the process of correcting these addressing errors is time-consuming not just in Waitsburg but up the line in our distribution plants. Our automation does not recognize addresses that we do not deliver to, so all these items need to be hand sorted. Furthermore, without local knowledge, our employees will be required to look up each item to match a name to a box number. We now have employees who know most of our customers and their box number, but that will change. Eventually, everyone who works here will move on, and if we don’t fix these addressing problems, the new employees will be walking into a mess. This is an inefficiency we can control locally, and it is our responsibility to do so.

I have read many good suggestions on how to fix this on Facebook. The following paragraph comes from our customer service office in Seattle;

You might suggest that your mailers use both the street address and Post Office Box number when sending you mail. Mail formatted with dual addresses (both a street address and a Post Office Box number) is delivered to the address immediately above the city and state (or to the post office box if both the street address and post office box are on the same line).

For example:

1201 BROAD ST E

PO BOX 1001

FALLS CHURCH VA 22062-1001

Again, thank you for your continued support, and please call or stop in if you have any comments or suggestions.

Michael Reed

Postmaster