I mailed a box air mail to Columbia, Mo., in October. It was not certified or insured. When my daughter had not received it within a week, I checked with the post office, where a clerk said it might have been sent by boat by mistake. In that case, it would take four to six weeks. Damaged mail eventually
sent to recovery centersWhen it still had not arrived, I got a tracer form from the post office, which my daughter mailed to her post office. It came back to me stating that the box had not been found. What happens to contents of boxes or wrappings that are damaged either here or on the mainland? Can I write or call to identify and claim contents?
The parcel probably was damaged or the address obliterated en route, said Postal Service spokeswoman Felice Broglio.
If the contents became separated from the address, the local office would try to piece it together first, she said. Because it was two months before you asked the question, Broglio suggested you provide detailed information -- date mailed, name/address of sender and addressee, description of contents and any other helpful information -- and send it to all three Mail Recovery Centers:
Atlanta MRC, US Postal Service, 5345 Fulton Industrial Blvd., Atlanta, GA 30336-9590; St. Paul MRC, U.S. Postal Service, 180 Kellogg Blvd. E, St. Paul, MN 55101-9609; and San Francisco MRC, U.S. Postal Service, 390 Main St., San Francisco, CA 94105-9602.
The centers "catalog everything (recovered) into a computer," Broglio said.
The policy is to make every "reasonable effort" to match loose articles with the envelope or wrapper and to return or forward the articles, she said.
If the sender or addressee cannot be determined, priority mail items (flats or parcels) and standard mail containing valuables are kept for 90 days. All "loose-in-the-mail items without value, except books and sound recordings," are prepared for disposal as soon as received if neither the sender nor addressee can be identified.
If it's free to call 911 from a telephone booth, why am I charged 27 cents on my bill under "statewide 911 emergency service surcharge?" Will this fee ever increase? When did this surcharge take effect? Also, I don't live in a rural area, so why am I charged 62 cents per month? A 28-cents 911 surcharge was approved by the Public Utilities Commission and went into effect on March 8, 1994. It was decreased to 27 cents on Aug. 7, 1995.
The fee is re-evaluated periodically to reflect the cost of providing 911 service, said GTE Hawaiian Tel spokesman Calvin Tadaki. The cost involves equipment, "so it may go higher or lower," he said.
Meanwhile, you no longer see the 62-cents-a-month Rural Service Program fee, which also was approved by the PUC, to help pay for the $35 million cost of upgrading rural phone service, mainly by eliminating party lines.
The idea was that half the bill would be paid by 2,500 or so rural customers, mostly on the Big Island, with the other half shared by the rest of Hawaiian Tel's customers. The problem was that rural customers weren't flocking to make the change and the PUC subsequently said they didn't have to bear half the cost, Tadaki said.
Although you no longer see the 62-cents charge, that doesn't mean you're not paying it.
The surcharge was folded into a 11.23 percent general rate increase approved by the PUC, effective Oct. 3, Tadaki said.
"It's the first rate increase in 10 years," he said.
All this should be explained to you in your telephone bill, he said.
Auwe
To the white Toyota Corolla that came speeding down Ward Avenue without stopping and turning right onto Beretania Street in December. You almost caused an accident. Don't you know you're supposed to stop at a red light!
