Friday, March 29, 2024

Posted, but never received

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When Cleopatra Devonish registered the mail she was sending overseas she thought she was doing the right thing and the important document would get to its intended address without incident.
But close to two years after she paid the General Post Office $17.80 to send the item to England, it still has not arrived and Devonish complained that the GPO had not been able to tell her what became of it.
The situation has left the 68-year-old in a quandary since the mail contained the original copy of her deceased husband’s will which she was required to send back to the attorneys in England for probate.
“I have heard nothing, nothing, nothing from the post office,” said a frustrated Devonish, who also said Postmaster General Joel Brathwaite had declined to meet her to explain what had happened to the missing mail.
“I?met with an officer at the post office and all he was prepared to do was to give me back my postage which I told him was a waste of my time and an insult to customers,” she said.
Explaining the circumstances surrounding the sending of the will overseas, Devonish said her husband passed away three years ago and she sought advice about his will at the offices of an attorney here.
“He told me that the will was made out in London and that I?would have to send it back to the attorneys who dealt with it. I went to the post office on April 20, 2012, and registered it and that was the end of that,” Devonish said, pointing out that she was sending the mail to a family member who was then supposed to hand deliver it to the attorneys.
After her family member did not receive the mail, Devonish said she kept going to the post office enquiring about it but nobody could tell her where it was.
On July 3, she received a letter asking her to visit the post office accounts branch and that was when she was told that her postage would be refunded.
Refusing to accept the offer, Devonish said she went to an attorney and paid her to write the postmaster general asking that he account for the missing mail.
“The lawyer wrote the letter in October and she has never even received a reply. I wrote the solicitors who made out the will in England and asked them to write the postmaster general to let him know that the will was indeed made out but again I have heard nothing from the post office.
“If I had dropped it in the letter box I?would have taken responsibility but I?registered it thinking it was recorded. The hurtful part is that the post master general would not even reply to my lawyer, not a word . . . I have been down there time and time again and nobody can tell me anything. I want to know who is going to pay for it because I have to go through a whole legal process to get back that will.”
Since the troubling incident, the post office has publicly issued new security changes for sending mail and Devonish believes this was done as a result of her experience.
In an advertisement which appeared in this newspaper on May 19, 2013, the postmaster general announced changes for sending important documents or valuable items in the mail.
People are now required to purchase registered mail envelopes with a special security feature which would enable the mail to be tracked or traced.
When contacted Postmaster General Joel Brathwaite, said: “I can’t discuss that matter at this moment.”

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