So getting mail here has been hit or miss for years. We've gone days without even a piece of junk mail. Sometimes the postman would arrive in the evening. Sometimes on Sundays. You just never knew when he/she would come by. Well we have a neighbor that moved here full time recently. They informed the post office and had a mailbox installed. They haven't received any mail. They've had the flag on their box up for over a week and their outbound letter is still in the box and no incoming. So they went to the office today in Kitty Hawk to find out why they are being skipped. It turns out that people buy postal routes here. A husband/wife owns our route but were subbing it out to their son and his girlfriend. They weren't updating their list of active addresses. The post office had been getting a ton of complaints. They believe that they just didn't care about actually delivering the mail. The post office believes that they were throwing away a lot of mail. They were fired this week. I wonder how long it will take for me to get my next letter now.
OK, you picked a great subject. Interesting how they buy a route, that is interesting. My mail lady has changed a couple times over the past 2-3 years. She is worked to death with all the Amazon boxes she delivers to your door. In February I mailed post cards to the owners of the rental houses our company manages, about 550 with each getting a post card. A couple were addressed to my home address. In March we set out 550 more to the same group and I made 3 go to my home. Out of 1,100 mailed none were returned undeliverable. That is not common to not get 3-4 returned. None were returned and none got to my house, but 2 people reported getting a card so why not everyone?? I think the Kitty Hawk PO tossed them in the trash.
This is an interesting topic for me too. I just sent some important paperwork to my remodeling contractor in Kitty Hawk. It's been a week now and it has not arrived. He has a post office box.
@Craic'n Crabs Another reason why i'll continue being an occassional visitor and seeing friends there. Have never had anything but a flip phone , still write checks and even in the country away from hustle and bustle in botetourt co va unless theres a holiday, and very rare winter weather we get mail , ups , fed ex etc and yes Sams club, bjs, wm, kroger etc n pizza etc delivery from 30+miles away. Just my humble opinion
Not sure if this is true but I've heard it more then once - If I mail something to say Nags Head. The Kitty Hawk office sends it to a processing center outside of Richmond. Then it gets sent to the Nags Head post office.
couple of things. If the mail goes to Richmond it is graded as the WORST mail processing facility in the US. As far as buying routes yes many rural carrier positions are contracted also the contractor can opt out of amazon deliveries. ( They may or may not have that option on the outer banks) Universally the US mail is terrible. My business still gets quite a few hard checks in the mail and currently we are missing over $4000 in checks ( in the last 30 days) that have never made it here. That incudes checks that the USPS had scanned and said would be delivered on a certain date yet never made it to our mailbox. You can sign up for guaranteed delivery and they will send you pics of your mail to be delivered as it goes through he sorting machines.
@Craic'n Crabs It is very true, it no longer goes to Rocky Mount. I sent a package to Richard (K4HAT) last year and I had tracking on it. I mailed it in Kitty Hawk and it went to Richmond, then Norfolk and then to Buxton. It took a week.
@Tim-OBX Crazy. I wonder how they're losing so much money.
I always thought mail here was slow because, well, it's the Outer Banks. I don't think I've ever had a problem here with Prime deliveries.
@Craic'n Crabs Now thats funny i dont care who you are lol!::dancing-banana::::dancing-banana::::dancing-banana::
@4Wheeler with prime until this year when amazon said it was going to be delivered on "X" date on Hatteras Island you just added 1 day and it was there. This year we found it was on the date that Amazon said it would be delivered.
@Alexy Just when you think you've heard it all haha younger relatives keep telling me to get in the real world. Majority of that no thanks. Happy and blessed in my life !
@Alexy Amazon Prime is a problem here too. 'Same Day' means tomorrow and 'Next Day' means two.