Responding to a Minot Daily News Facebook inquiry about their mail experiences, residents identified a handful of primary concerns, and while the sampling might not be an indication of how widespread or frequent those problems are, the feedback pinpointed issues that appear to be most acute.

One of those issues is mail theft. Residents of Minot and Minot Air Force Base say cards and envelopes containing cash or gift cards commonly disappear in the mail delivery system. Children denied valentines from grandparents and Christmases that have been grinched have residents afraid to trust their valuables to the Postal Service. One resident reported a sealed gift box containing multiple wrapped presents arrived at its California destination with one of the presents – an expensive set of headphones – removed.

Even residents farther west in Williston and Watford City say they’ve had problems with missing or stolen mail.

Mail theft is a crime against the customer and the Postal Service, USPS spokeswoman Darla Swanson, Crosby, Minn., wrote in an emailed response to a query about the problem. The USPS has its own law enforcement arm, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, that investigates theft of mail, she said.

Jill Schramm/MDN The lobby of the Minot Post Office is quiet on a weekday morning.

“Currently, the Postal Service is working with the Minot Air Force Base to deploy community mailbox units to help deter theft occurrences. The Postal Service also recommends never sending cash in the mail, and gift cards should be researched to ensure they are replaceable if lost or stolen,” she said.

Some residents, when asked further about their mail theft issues, responded they already have locked mailboxes.

Megan Herron at Minot AFB said her family has a community lock box but it didn’t stop an April birthday card with cash and a December gift card from going missing last year. They now ask family or others who are sending valuables to do so in tracked envelopes or packages.

“That was the only suggestion they gave us at that time,” Herron said of her family’s experience in reporting the thefts to the Postal Service. “Now they are telling people to file a report.”

Along with mail tracking, postal customers can go to informeddelivery.usps.com and sign up for digital previews of incoming mail.

Jill Schramm/MDN A row of postal drop boxes stand outside the Minot Post Office.

Swanson explains Informed Delivery is a free and optional notification feature that gives residential consumers the ability to digitally preview their letter-sized mail pieces and manage their packages scheduled to arrive soon. Informed Delivery makes mail more convenient by allowing users to view what is coming to their mailboxes – even while traveling – on a computer, tablet or mobile device. Users can view delivery status of packages, provide delivery instructions, manage their notifications and schedule redelivery.

“The U.S. Postal Service delivers six days a week to tens of thousands of addresses across the Minot area and our goal is to ensure our customers receive their mail accurately and on time,” Swanson said in her email. “If a customer has a service or delivery concern, the Postal Service wants to know about it. The sooner we hear from our customers, the quicker we can resolve the issue.”

Customers should contact 1-800-ASK-USPS (275-8777) or visit usps.com/help. Swanson said wait time for the 800 number varies. One local resident who had made the call reported a one-hour wait time.

“We simply ask for our customers’ patience so we can address their specific issue or they can visit us on usps.com/help,” Swanson said.

Another issue frustrating multiple residents is mail returned to sender rather than delivered to a legitimate address or returned to sender several months after originally sent. One resident reported getting an entire stack of invoices returned without even being postmarked.

Keli Anderson, property manager at The Wyatt at Northern Lights apartments, tells of occasional incoming mail being returned to senders, including mail from the City of Minot and the property’s corporate office, despite correct addressing.

The problem of stolen mail has affected The Wyatt residents, too, particularly in the past four months, Anderson said. Residents’ mail is delivered by the Postal Service to locked boxes.

More troublesome have been packages not showing up at The Wyatt office for residents who were expecting them, including packages with tracking that shows delivery.

“We in the office get accused of stealing packages,” said Anderson, who has had her own mail with a gift card go missing. “Our tenants get frustrated because they can’t even get ahold of the post office.”

Perennial complaints of finding misdirected mail in the box continue to crop up – fairly frequently for some. Most people have learned to live with it by either delivering it to a neighbor themselves or returning mail to the Postal Service.

Residents also bemoan the Postal Service isn’t the fast delivery it used to be but understand the financial constraints that have led to operational changes that they blame for slowing the mail. And while options for making one’s complaints heard aren’t ideal, they do exist.

U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp’s Fix My Mail survey remains available on her website, and Heitkamp said she makes use of the feedback in drafting legislation and in conversations with postal authorities.

“The U.S. Postal Service is a great equalizer for rural America – allowing Americans from every zip code to get their mail and packages in an accessible, reliable, and affordable manner,” Heitkamp said in a prepared statement. “Unfortunately, I’ve heard from far too many North Dakotans about degradations in service, delays in delivery and thefts at their front doorstep. That’s why I started my Fix My Mail initiative back in 2014, which has allowed hundreds of North Dakotans to share their concerns with me about chronic service and mail delivery problems, and I’ve brought those concerns to the Postal Service, which has led to some important changes. The Postal Service must be responsive to customer concerns like these, and it’s our responsibility in Congress to hold it accountable to achieve real results in our communities.”