Published: December 10, 2009

“I’ve been waiting on a package from Florida that was mailed a month and a half ago,” said Megan Branch, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’11. “Ridiculous.” Branch’s problem is not unique; complaints about the mailroom are common among FCLC students, often regarding delays in delivery times.

“Everything my mom sends me overnight never comes for… a week,” said Kristin Nahas, FCLC ’10, a Long Island resident. Joseph Martinez, FCLC ’11, echoed Nahas’ sentiment. “My mom has sent me numerous express packages from Texas via a few different carriers and I somehow manage to get them a day or two late… even after the carrier’s tracking system marks them as ‘received.’”

The issue of slow turnaround for deliveries is one that Pete Bundock, assistant vice president for facilites at FCLC, attributes to “misleading information… on the United States Postal Service Web site.”

He explained, “The U.S. Post Office delivers letters and packages whose delivery requires that they be signed for once a day from a local post office. It should be noted that when this mail reaches the local post office, it is scanned and a notation [is] sent to the [USPS] Web site indicating that the mail has been received. This mail may be delivered to Lowenstein that day or it may be delivered the next day or several days later if there is an intervening weekend or holiday.” Bundock said that the USPS delivers once daily, at 10 a.m., and other carriers, including UPS, Fed-Ex, and AirBorne, deliver throughout the day.

Bundock said that express mail is the only delivery method from the USPS that is scanned upon arrival at the Lowenstein mailroom, “so in these cases, the Web site will correctly note its delivery as the same day it reached [McMahon] Hall.”

Alexander Armero, FCLC ’12, recalled his experience with an online order being delivered to the mailroom. “On a Friday, the shipping tracker finally says ‘delivered,’ and since it’s USPS, I understand that only means it got to the facility.

“We called up the post office and they said it was out on delivery. It was about 4:30 p.m. when we called back and they said the delivery man had already headed home for the day, meaning the package was delivered. Yet the mailman in the package room… didn’t put our slip in the mailbox, and since the package room is closed on Saturdays for some god-forsaken reason, we had to wait until Monday evening to get it.”

According to Bundock, the mailroom staff has received “little, if any” complaints about service. “When any mail is delivered to the Lowenstein mail room, it is immediately sorted and letters and notices of delivery of packages are placed in the student mail slots and the packages are placed in the package room, ready for pickup by students. Mail is tended to immediately and not allowed to lay around. Employees  do not leave the mail room until all mail has been sorted and delivered to the mail boxes, package room or for Administrative and faculty offices, to their mail drop points.”