[ankeny]

This Christmas (2016) I mailed from my village mail station two Christmas cards with cash inside (Never mail cash) to family members located in different Cities. The cards were never delivered. Four weeks later in a conversation with a neighbor we somehow got on the subject of mail in The Villages and she told me that at Christmas (2016) she mailed four cards to the same address two with gift cards and two without. The Two without gift cards made it to the destination the two with gift cards never arrived. This seemed odd so I called the Postal Service Fraud division to report my missing mail they opened a case and told me that they would investigate. After three days I received a response that surprised me and I wanted to share what I was told with other Villagers.


1) The Village mail station are not secure locations and many people have keys to access anytime day or night.

2) The delivery people are not Postal employee’s just contractors.

3) No one monitor these location they are not the responsible of the Postal Service.

4) Since they are not the responsible of the Postal Service there is nothing that can be done to keep this from happening again

5) I was told by the case worker that I should never use the mail drops at The Village mail stations and only deposit mail at actual post office.

I am sure the majority of the contractors that handle our mail here in the villages are honest hard work people but it only takes one maybe extra Christmas help to destroy our trust in the system. I know I have learned a lessons and hope by sharing this it may save someone else from making the same mistake.

Also if you sent cash or gift card this Christmas (2016) that never got delivered please response to this thread.