I was in the process of selling my father's house and the title company over-nighted some papers to us using Airborne. The driver left the papers on the porch (signature required) at a house three blocks over, same number, wrong street. The cretin at that house opened the package (clearly addressed to me) and shoved the papers back in sideways. And two days later gave them to the USPS mail carrier who brought them to me. (Very nice of her--it wasn't her job!) I'd had the title company checking their records for their shipment. I was seriously considering knocking on that neighbor's door (what on earth did they think they were doing, opening that?) and I let the title company know the get their money back from the carrier.

I've used a post office box most of my adult life, and at the last postal station before the one I use now I had a book I'd mailed come back for some reason undeliverable. The person who puts stuff in boxes FOLDED A HARDCOVER BOOK and shoved it into my box. It was wedged in and someone had to pry it out from inside. And of course they weren't in any way going to consider themselves responsible for destroying that book. The station postmaster said "I'll tell them not to do that again. . . "

I've got a million of them. I've encountered the postal threshing machine many times with mail. Though lately I've had very good luck shipping eBay packages through them. So I suppose it averages out.

SRS