<p>We had to put a rush on our German tax company to get our 2006 tax return. One of D’s schools required it, and S2’s merit scholarships are dependent upon it. The stated due date is April 1, but the real due date is today, since 4/1 is on a Sunday. We finally got it from Germany on Tuesday evening. My H printed, signed, and took it to the post office on Wednesday during his lunch break. He paid to have it overnighted to NYC, so S2 could sign his portion and turn it in to Juilliard’s financial aid office. S2 hung out in the mail room till it closed, and the packet never arrived. So H emailed it to him (encripted) - 7 separate emails (our return is something like 80 pages long), and S2 was up until 1 a.m. printing it out. He did get it turned in today.</p>
<p>However, the overnite packet still did not arrive today. My H inquired at the post office about getting a refund, as it was guaranteed overnite delivery. The PO told him yes, he can apply for a refund, but only AFTER the packet gets delivered. So, if the PO never delivers it, they don’t have to pay?</p>
<p>Does anybody have any experience with this? What do we do if all our private, personal info is lost by the PO?</p>
<p>Binx,
I’m so sorry about your troubles. In my experience, the post office is extremely unreliable. Do you have copies of your documents? can you fax them? What about fed ex? I once had to fed ex something for a weekend delivery. If you live in or near a major metro area, you may be able to fed ex into the evening hours and still get saturday delivery. I’m not sure if this will help your situation or not.</p>
<p>Since the overnight package has a tracking number, hopefully it should be easier to track and is not truly lost</p>
<p>Unless the package arrives still sealed, re the potential breach of personal information, recommend placing fraud alerts on all three CRAs for each person who has a social security or national ID number listed on any of the documents…</p>
<p>I think this is the condition where they came up with the phrase “When it absolutely, positively needs to be there overnight…”.</p>
<p>If this was sent to a University mailroom the problem might be with the mailroom rather than the post office. Some of these Uni mailrooms are very inefficient - it could just be just sitting somewhere there.</p>
<p>My S was actually sitting in the mail room yesterday, waiting for it. Juilliard is a small school, so the mailroom isn’t very big. The mail room attendants took the tracking number from S and looked it up for him. It told them it wasn’t coming.</p>
<p>Here’s what the tracking now says:
</p>
<p>So, it should have gotten there yesterday, but only arrived in NYC today, and apparently hasn’t yet been picked up for delivery.</p>
<p>The mail room closes at 4:30. Unfortunately, it isn’t open on weekends, so we won’t know till Monday if there’s any sign of it.</p>
<p>Fed Ex actually also delivers to the mail room, so the weekend delivery doesn’t help.</p>
<p>Your son can call the PO in the zip code; you can get the phone number of each PO by calling the central toll-free number–a nuisance but it will work… He can probably arrange to pick it up himself tomrrow if the PO is open, which will at leat keep it from being tampered wtih over the weekend. He will need ID but it should actually not be too complicated.</p>
<p>Don’t know if you are limited to USPS because of where the mail is going to/from.</p>
<p>But, if not, for the future I learned long ago that it is FedEx (first choice), UPS or DHL if you actually care about it getting there when promised. If you read most of the fine print for USPS, their promised times for delivery are “approximate.”</p>
<p>I, too, learned that if you want it there on time, use UPS, FedEx or DHL. While my experience did not involve personal financial info, it did involve son receiving a package during finals this past fall. And, as UCLA dad points out, it may be a problem with the University mail system. I paid for a package with the USPS for two day delivery–only to find out that package was delivered 1 week later. Don’t know if it was the postal service or the Uni mail service. Needless to say, this semester, I have used UPS every time a package has been sent, and except for a major snowstorm, every package has been delivered right on time, two day delivery with the snowstorm package being delivered only 1 day late. To quote another student, UPS, FedEx and DHL are for-profit businesses and will do whatever is necessary to keep customers satisfied. I will not use the Postal Service again to send packages. Postal service just does not seem to put the “Customer” first!</p>
<p>Oh you will get your money back. Last year I had a timed delivery sent through USPS and I got my $45.00 back when the package reached 3 hours late. I was quite surprised.</p>