how often does theft occur at the USPS

[bigyellowdog2012]

is it frequent that a package is intercepted by someone at the post office

and its contents are stolen?

[therogue-trader]

Frequent?  No.  Possible?  Sure.

[*smedley*]

no

[bigyellowdog2012]

I'm not at all sure what to do here.

I shipped an item via priority mail on December 28th.

the buyer got it yesterday the 23rd of January

she is now telling me the package is mangled and the bag I shipped in it has been replaced by a much much cheaper bag than I shipped.

I recognize it was almost a month in some kind of transit purgatory...

and now the original bag has been stolen and replaced by something else??

[1tuna]

the only theft I ever read about are the new people at the window section who steal credit card numbers.

these folks are not too smart and do not last long

I think employee theft of package contents or packages is low.

I think most postal employees take the job seriously after they have been there a while

[mtgraves7984]

"I'm not at all sure what to do here."

@bigyellowdog2012 

Yeah, you are... dang it. Sorry whatever happened to you happened to you. 

[rebell45]

Postal workers would face severe punishment if caught pilfering the mail. And postal facilities have cameras everywhere, only an idiot would try anything. Of course there's always the fool that will try, even though they make good money and have great benefits.

More likely the machinery tears up a poorly packaged item and the item is lost. Then, if it is found, there is no way to tell where it came from.

[stephenmorgan]

[bigyellowdog2012]

Postal workers would face severe punishment if caught pilfering the mail. And postal facilities have cameras everywhere, only an idiot would try anything. Of course there's always the fool that will try, even though they make good money and have great benefits.

More likely the machinery tears up a poorly packaged item and the item is lost. Then, if it is found, there is no way to tell where it came from.

I think the problem here is that the very expensive handbag I shipped that was lost for almost 30 days 

has been replaced by another cheap handbag?

[toysaver]

Far more llikely to be stolen by a neighbor, family member or porch pirate.  The PO provides a living wage and employees can afford to buy the things they need and want.  Not to mention big brother is everywhere and many activities in the PO are on camera.

[*smedley*]

---

@toysaver wrote:

Far more llikely to be stolen by a neighbor, family member or porch pirate.  The PO provides a living wage and employees can afford to buy the things they need and want.  Not to mention big brother is everywhere and many activities in the PO are on camera.

---

yep... there are very few places in postal facilities where you can't be directly observed by postal inspectors, and there's no way to know if they're watching or not...

[catgarage]

Every day twice on Sunday

[rebell45]

she is now telling me the package is mangled and the bag I shipped in it has been replaced by a much much cheaper bag than I shipped.

I recognize it was almost a month in some kind of transit purgatory...

and now the original bag has been stolen and replaced by something else??

Fishy, why bother replacing it? Hope you asked for pictures.

[yuzuha]

Smells like a scam to me.

[pooh333piglet]

It's a possibility the buyer of that expensive handbag is leading you on. It does happen that a buyer swaps an item out. Horrific thought as a seller but it does occur.