---

Postal Service hands
are tied across border

Question: We sent packages to my daughter in 2003, when she began a Peace Corps assignment to Gabon, West Africa. We tried both insuring and not insuring them. Of six packages, she received only two. When I asked the post office what happened, they said that the packages made it into Gabon and were picked up by a Gabonese courier, but they couldn't track it from there. I let it go. But last fall, my son began college in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada. I sent a package and it was greatly delayed. On Oct. 22, I sent his absentee ballot by Express Mail. I paid $15.50 and received assurances that it would get to him in time. The three-ounce item, which left Kailua by Express Mail, got into Vancouver on Oct. 29. On Jan. 19, my son called to say his ballot had arrived. It took seven days to get to Vancouver and 89 days to get to him in Canada. When I asked for an explanation, the answer was that once it gets to Canada, a courier picks it up and the U.S. couldn't track it from there. I am still looking for a venue to lodge a complaint. The Postal Service won't file one and when I try the 1-800 number, it goes nowhere. The Postal Service accepts a lot of my money for delivery in a timely fashion, so it behooves it to check on the "courier services" of the other countries to see how reliable they are or are not, in making deliveries. What recourse do I have?

Answer: You can fill out a Form 542, and the Postal Service will send it to the appropriate Canadian office.

But it really has no authority to demand a response.

"Domestically, we are able to investigate (a mailing)," said Lynne Moore, manager of consumer affairs for the U.S. Postal Service in Hawaii. That's because "we know where it was mailed and we can go to where it should be delivered. We can touch the whole process."

However, internationally, it's only by "very formal," mutual agreement, via the Universal Postal Union, that countries handle each other's mail, she said.

The Postal Service does not have facilities or carriers in other countries, and if there is a complaint about missing or damaged mail sent outside U.S. jurisdiction, it has no part in the investigation.

Form 542 is an inquiry form available at most post offices by which the Postal Service asks another country the status of a mailed item.

"Hopefully, the country will respond because that's the only way we can get information," Moore said.

She apologized if you were not told what you could or could not do to try to track what happened in cases involving missing or long-delayed delivery to a foreign country.

In the case of your son's ballot, Moore said she can't say specifically what happened. But, she noted that changes have been made to what Canada now requires of its mail, such as requiring everything to be written in English and spelled out, as well as requiring mail to pass through the Canadian Customs.

That, combined with the usual December holiday crush, did create a large backlog, she said.

|

---

---