The US Postal Service’s giant distribution warehouse in Teterboro, NJ has become a “black hole” for delayed and lost packages — and it’s slamming customers nationwide, The Post has learned.
David Yoho of West Virginia had to wait 22 days for a pair of New Balance sneakers he ordered on Amazon Prime because it got stuck in Teterboro, according to screenshots of his correspondence. Connie Young, who lives in Guam, recently ordered a $600 computer from Manhattan-based B&H Photo Video. It took 20 days to ship after it landed in Teterboro, she said.
“This is the third package that has gone missing at this facility in past month,” wrote one angry business owner on Safelyhq.com, a site that tracks health, safety and community issues. “What is going on there? They have lost over $200 of my products.”
Nearly 40 complaints have been posted on Safelyhq.com since Sept. 9, but the number of affected consumers and businesses is likely in the thousands, says the website’s founder Patrick Quade, who also runs iwaspoisoned.com.
“It’s unprecedented to get this level of reporting for a single mail distribution facility in this amount of time,” Quade said.
The snafus at the sprawling Teterboro facility, which sits a few miles west of Manhattan across the Hudson River, come as Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced a national mail slowdown as part of a cost-cutting plan that took effect Oct. 1. In addition to slowing first-class mail by about a day, the plan calls for reductions in airmail and restrictions on how far a piece of mail can travel in one day.
The USPS, however, insists the Teterboro situation has nothing to do with the cost cuts, instead blaming Hurricane Ida. The roof of the nearby Greater Newark Processing Distribution Center “partially collapsed” on Sept. 1 because of storm damage, the USPS said. The mail that Newark had been handling — between 250,000 to 300,000 pieces a day — was shifted to other facilities including Teterboro, it added.
What’s more, the USPS maintains that Teterboro has not “had major delays in processing.” The facility even got a new 248-foot-long mail sorting machine over the summer that’s supposed to sort up to 6,500 packages an hour, or about 1,000 more than the previous system.
“While we are aware of some delays, overall package service continues to improve, despite the surge in volume that came as a result of the downed Newark facility,” the USPS said in a statement to The Post.
Indeed, many customers gripe that the USPS didn’t give any updates or notices about the delays, even as they resorted to filing missing mail or refund claims. That includes a Tennessee consumer who reported paying $26 for two-day delivery and a Westchester, NY customer who paid $72 to Priority Mail a large package.
“You can’t get anyone on the phone and I need this package for an event,” wrote an Alabama customer on Safelyhq.com on Sept. 23. “I feel horrible for people who may need medication or something that is an emergency.”
“Package has been at Teterboro since Sept. 3. It’s now Sept. 25 with no update!” a Virginia customer fumed.
Dozens of frustrated consumers are also posting their Teterboro missing mail experiences on Reddit, including one who showed a photo of a package that arrived “12 days late and 11 days with no update.”
The package, however, did come with an apology sticker from the USPS, as its contents — worth $130 according to the Reddit user — were missing.
