Richmond-area nonprofits express concern about Postal Service delivery problems

As the U.S. Postal Service heads into its peak mail period -- and the busiest day of the year today -- some area nonprofit groups say they're concerned about what they say are increasing disruptions in the delivery of their mail.

They say payments, requests for donations and newsletters have gone missing or have been delivered weeks after items were dropped at local post offices. And they are frustrated that their questions about the delays have gone unanswered.

"Churches and other nonprofits who can ill afford to waste money are spending it on staff time, printing, postage . . . for pieces that are never received or which are so late as to be useless," said Sarah Bartenstein, director of communications at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church.

On Oct. 26, St. Stephen's took its 1,500 copies of its November newsletter to the Sandston Center, but parishioners did not receive them until five weeks later, Bartenstein said. The news in the newsletter was old news by then, she said.

Repeated calls and e-mails to the Postal Service, she said, have not led to any explanations for the delays.

"The lack of concern and lack of action are incredibly frustrating," she said. "If a business behaved in this way, the customer would demand a refund."

The Postal Service does not guarantee time of delivery except for express mail, said Cathy A. Baule, the Postal Service's district communications coordinator in Richmond. Delivery time of standard letters, including nonprofit mail, can take anywhere from six to 14 days, depending on the distance to its destination and the total volume of mail in the system at the time, she said.

Delays can be expected between Thanksgiving and Christmas, the busiest time of year for the Postal Service, when the Richmond Processing and Distribution Center in Sandston averages close to 1 million pieces of mail each day, compared with an average of about 600,000 during the rest of the year, Baule said. Today, the Sandston facility expects to process more than 1.7 million pieces.

But some local agencies say they have experienced problems with the delivery of their mail at other, less busy times of the year.

Three months ago, Historic Richmond Foundation dropped 25 checks at an East Main Street blue mailbox, but the payments to vendors never made it to their destination.

"It has just gotten a whole lot worse," said Mary Jane Hogue, executive director of Historic Richmond Foundation. In the case of the checks, she said, the organization had to issue new checks and pay late fees and interest to vendors.

"It is not the first time it has happened. It leaves you wondering, where are all these envelopes?" she said. "It is just frustrating because you want to keep your good credit and we are all customer-service oriented, otherwise we wouldn't have donors. . . . I can't understand why the post office can't tell us where is the missing mail."

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The processing center in Sandston, which processes all mail for central Virginia, moved to the current location in October and during the initial transition, some delays may have occurred, Baule said.

She attributed the delays to several factors.

"The most common reasons are missing or wrong information within the address lines, an address or label being misread by our automated machinery and sent to the wrong place, and high volumes of mail in the system," Baule said.

While express mail can be insured, first-class letters/flats and standard letters/flats cannot be insured or tracked.

Despite complaints, customer satisfaction with the Postal Service remains high, according to a recent national survey conducted by the Gallup Organization. That survey showed 94 percent of U.S. Postal Service customers found the service excellent, very good or good.

The survey results came last month, when the service reported it had ended the 2009 fiscal year with a net loss of $3.8 billion, after a year of cost-cutting efforts.

Baule said the Postal Service has "processing and delivery standards that we strive to meet." She added that the service is measured daily and reported quarterly by an independent company, IBM Global Business Services, and "currently the Richmond District meets these standards over 95 percent of the time."

Terri Tatum, owner of A Direct Connection in Richmond, which provides mailing services to local profit and nonprofit organizations, said that in her 15 years in business, "there have been ups and downs with the Postal Service." Her company provides help with such things as bulk mailings, high-speed envelope addressing, processing postage and taking mail to the Sandston facility.

"What bothers us is that there is no accountability at the post office," she said. "There is no regulation that keeps the post office intact. If there is a screw-up, there is no reimbursement from the post office."

"I, as owner of the company, have accountability to my client," she added. "The post office has lost accountability."

In a recent case, she said, a bulk mailing for a conference that was sent to the New York area arrived at its destination after the conference had taken place. "These are extreme cases, but when it does happen it is very frustrating," she said.

Fletcher Rick, owner of Rickland Direct LLC, another mailing-service provider in Richmond, said that some customers don't understand the way the Postal Service handles certain classes of mail.

Nonprofit mail, usually bulk mail, is handled as standard mail. It has less priority than express and first-class mail, which is made up of first-class letters, flat-size mail, first-class parcels and Priority Mail packages.

On average, Rick said, the bulk mail gets to its destination in five to 10 days after it is brought to the Postal Service.

At this time of year, he said, "you will have more volume of mail into the post office, so you are going to see more delays. . . . Overall, the post office is working very hard to try to move the mail in the postal system."

Contact Luz Lazo at (804) 649-6058 or llazo@timesdispatch.com.