Postmaster Joe Laramie deserves a Medal of Honor. Recently I mailed the title to a car I’d sold to California. At the buyer’s request I used Priority Mail with tracking. When I called the buyer to make certain he’d received the title, he told me he hadn’t.
Using the tracking number, I went online learned that the letter had been delivered but not to the buyer’s zip code. When I told him this, he screamed: “You wrote the wrong zip code; the car I’ve paid for is ‘worth nothing’ without the title; if you don’t get it, I’ll sue you.” (The car was a 1996, and Vermont does not issue or replace titles to vehicles more than 15 years old.)
Then I noticed an 800 number on the tracking receipt and dialed it up. Postmaster Laramie answered. He had access to USPS records that I did not and told me that the zip code to which my letter had been delivered served several zip codes, including the buyer’s, and that the letter had been mistakenly put into a box for a large company.
“Your buyer needs only to go to his post office to straighten it out,” Joe said. I asked him whether the buyer could call him directly, and he said, “Of course.”
Thanks to Joe’s help the buyer got his title. Three days later, Joe called me to make sure everything had worked out well. To me it’s always been a miracle that for 49 cents we can send a letter across the U.S., and expect it to be delivered within 2-4 days. Joe and his staff at the Middlebury post office are first-rate public servants who go far beyond the call of duty to serve us. We are extremely fortunate to have their help and Joe’s leadership.
John Freidin
Middlebury