Post Office Left Holding the Bag, Delivers Apology

In a terse apology, the U.S. Postal Service admitted that for six months, it misplaced a bag of mail containing car registration fees from motorists, which was supposed to have been delivered to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

“On behalf of the postal service, we sincerely apologize for the delay . . . and the inconvenience it caused you and your organization,” wrote Ferrel McKee, post office operations manager for the Santa Ana District, in a letter sent to the DMV in Westminster on Sept. 9.

It ends a bitter dispute between the agencies that began when a driver was stopped and cited for having no registration.

The driver complained to the dealer, from whom he had just bought the car, that he had sent them a check for the registration on Feb. 28. The dealer complained to the DMV.

The DMV, in checking the complaint, discovered that some mail had not been delivered to its Westminster offices on Feb. 29.

The postal service said it did deliver the mail that day, and had a receipt as proof.

But in her letter, McKee said a lost mailbag was found Sept. 6 in a hamper at the Santa Ana post office on Sunflower Avenue. In the bag were 25 letters, all postmarked Feb. 28 and 29.

Apparently, the mailbag “was overlooked,” by a postal employee, said Terri Bouffiou, a postal service spokeswoman.

“We did deliver mail that day to the DMV,” Bouffiou said. “And, we had a receipt showing that we delivered certified mail that day, but apparently there were two sacks of mail on that particular day, and we didn’t deliver the second sack.”

Postal service officials said they were unable to trace the exact cause of the error. “We’re guilty as charged,” Bouffiou said.

The apology, albeit late, was welcomed at the DMV, said William Madison, a DMV spokesman in Sacramento.

“It’s good news for us,” Madison said. “We knew we hadn’t received [the mail], and there’s no reason for us not to process it.”

After the problem surfaced, DMV officials had offered to write a letter to the court on behalf of the driver, explaining the problem.

The DMV office, one of the state’s largest, handles paperwork from 600 car dealerships throughout Orange County, which send in registration forms on behalf of buyers.

Ten dealerships were affected by the loss of the mailbag, according to the DMV. Although the center receives a mailbag of more than 2,000 items daily from the post office, it was not immediately known how many checks for registrations were included in the found mailbag.

Ironically, the postal service in the Santa Ana district, which serves Orange County and portions of San Gabriel Valley, received a high rating for mail delivery in a survey published last week. The district received a 93% delivery rate, meaning 93 of 100 letters or packages mailed in the area arrived the next day. The national average is 91%.