Records: Postal workers falsify delivery data
WASHINGTON — U.S. Postal Service employees and supervisors have routinely falsified data on package deliveries, likely so they are not penalized for tardiness, according to postal workers and internal data obtained by the Washington Post. And the practice appears to have intensified as Americans ordered more items online during the coronavirus pandemic.
A Washington Post examination of Postal Service data and interviews with nearly a dozen current and former employees showed that workers scanned millions of packages with incorrect delivery-designation codes — claiming that a customer’s drivewaywas blocked or that the recipient was not home, for example, when in fact the package never left the post office.
The problematic scans are among several practices that have drawn attention recently, as the Postal Service grapples with costcutting measures introduced by Postmaster General Louis Dejoy and prepares for an unprecedented flood of mail-in ballots for the November election. Dejoy’s policies, some of which have been halted by federal judges, have been cited by independent experts and Democrats in Congress as causing widespread delays in
first-class deliveries.
Postal workers said in interviews that they have been pressured by their bosses to perform false scans increasingly over the past six months so that late packages appear to have been delivered — or are delayed because of issues at the delivery address — to ensure they don’t count against the agency’s delivery statistics.
“They don’t care as long as there’s a scan on it, because it doesn’t count as a failure. But it is a failure,” said one mail carrier in Massachusettswho, like others interviewed, spoke on the condition of anonymity. “If I had a dollar, I would bet you a dollar that it’s not just in my office that that
scan doesn’t get recorded when Congress says, ‘I want to see your delivery metrics.’ ”
Postal Service spokesman David Partenheimer said in a statement that the agency maintains “end to end visibility” of its packages as they are accepted, processed and delivered, and that it takes “improper package processing very seriously.”
“We are committed to making sure all packages are properly delivered for our customers,” Partenheimer wrote.
Inspectors general have chastised the Postal Service for false package scans for years, but internal data obtained by the Post suggests the problem has worsened.
In 2017, one inspector general pointed out that 1 percent of all packages were being scanned after 7 p.m., an indicator that they were scanned to “stop the clock,” as the agency calls it, rather than being labeled correctly. By September of this year, the data obtained by the Post shows that number climbing: More than 7 percent of packages were scanned after 5 p.m., when almost all deliveries are already completed for the day. Packages are considered “failed” if they are not delivered by 8 p.m.
From Sept. 1 to Sept. 16, 5.5 million of the 617.5 million items delivered, or0.89 percent, hadbeen scanned at least twice — indicating the first scan may have been false and used simply to meet a deadline, according to internal Postal Service data.
During the same period, 7.85 percent of all scans occurred after 5 p.m., according to another internal agency data set.
The mail carrier in Massachusetts, who has been with the Postal Service for more than 30 years, said that after Dejoy’s policies were instituted, his post office fell behind on sorting like never before. False scans skyrocketed.
“Less than a year ago, there were banners hanging in the office. ‘Every piece, every day.’ ‘The customer depends on you.’ Stuff like that,” he said.
This year, the banners came down.