Milford business owner fears delayed mail could ruin him

MILFORD — The check is in the mail. For a long, long time, it seems.

Dan Thornberg, owner of landscaping business Total Lawn Care & More, said he’s been waiting 45 days for tens of thousands of dollars in customer payments that he was told were sent, but never arrived at his post office box on Pepe’s Farm Road.

Thornberg, 31, in business for 11 years, employs 10-15 workers and said he faces potential financial collapse if the checks don’t arrive soon. If not for the recent sale of a house and credit cards, he would be sunk, he said.

Thornberg, a member of the city Chamber of Commerce, has been trying to get answers from the USPS for 45 days, he said — only to be told by local postal officials that his mail may be in trucks of backed-up mail in Springfield, Mass.

But following an inquiry by Hearst Connecticut Media into the checks he is waiting for, the USPS customer relations department said it is taking a “deep dive” into his case, said Amy Gibbs, a regional spokeswoman.

“We are working through high volumes of mail in a global pandemic and we are exceedingly proud of the exceptional job our employees are doing (and continue to do every day) as they work around the clock to deliver mail,” Gibbs said.

Gibbs didn’t directly answer the question of whether there has been a high volume of complaints, but encouraged anyone having a problem to “reach out to us” using 1-800-ASK-USPS or the website www.usps.com.

According to USPS data in its “Performance Highlights In FY 2020 Quarter 4” document, for the period from July 1 to Sept. 30, national “SinglePiece First-Class Mail” twoday performance was 88.2 percent on time and national three-to-five day performance was 72.1 percent on time. The two-day performance score was 5.8 points lower than the same period last year. The three-to-fiveday performance score was 15.7 points lower than the same period last year.

That data for the Northeast area listed the “Connecticut Valley,” as 88.6 percent on time for two-day performance and 73.2 on time for three-to-five day performance.

Thornberg said he is grateful USPS is taking his woes seriously and trying to resolve the problem, but that doesn’t pay the bills and he said he questioned how many other business owners are in the same boat.

“I don’t want to be another casualty of COVID so I want to get the word out,” Thornberg said. While he understands the chaos caused by the pandemic, if the checks don’t arrive, “I fear I’ll have to close.”