The last thing anyone wants to hear from a postmaster is that their mail isn’t being properly protected. Yet that is essentially what one postmaster in Illinois has been accused of. A resident who uses the Reddit handle ToshPointNo shared their experience on r/usps_complaints, claiming that their local USPS postmaster explicitly told them that “stealing mail isn’t a felony.”
“I just can’t imagine someone who worked their way up to postmaster being that wrong,” remarked ToshPointNo. According to their post, the comment referred to an interaction with their local postmaster during a visit to the post office. ToshPointNo said they had left packages on the counter because no staff members were available to accept them. However, when they returned the next day, the postmaster criticized them for doing so.
“The postmaster made a big spectacle of telling me I ‘shouldn’t do that’ because ‘someone could have taken them,’” ToshPointNo recalled. They said they defended their actions by pointing out the office’s security cameras and noting that mail theft is a federal felony — an argument the postmaster allegedly dismissed with a laugh.
The Internet Weighs In
Among the dozens of Redditors who weighed in on ToshPointNo’s post, many sided with the postmaster. While they didn’t necessarily agree with his remark, they pointed out that the OP should not have left their packages on the counter.
“Wouldn’t be mail until officially tendered to USPS, leaving it in the open like that probably wouldn’t qualify,” wrote a user. Another commenter agreed, saying that since USPS never took the packages into its possession, “You basically abandoned property,” they told OP. A third sarcastically remarked how the post office’s security cameras probably didn’t even work.
Other people brought up another issue in the conversation regarding how USPS or the police handle thefts, with commenters claiming that the authorities likely don’t take such reports seriously. ToshPointNo responded to the comments, saying that the police where they used to live were “equally as useless” when their house had been broken into.
Several Redditors sided with OP, with some even criticizing USPS postmasters more broadly. “Postmasters are just glorified supervisors… who are just glorified workers that don’t work,” one commenter remarked.
In reality, most commenters are right to advise the Illinois resident not to leave their mail unattended. As one person regrettably notes, “mail theft is rampant and goes unpunished,” placing much of the responsibility on everyday people to keep their mail safe and secure.
