Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in California
Thank you for taking my question.---------- I have a P.O. Box which was due sometime in november. I don,t remember the exact date and I couldn't find my paperwork. I was expecting to receive a payment due notice in my box at any time. (I had a box in a different city several years ago and every due date for my fee they put a notice in my box a week or two ahead of time): I was going to go to the counter and inquire if I did not reeceive a notice by late Dec. I went to my box on Dec. 20 and it was locked from the inside. I went to the counter and they told me to pay my bill. I said ok and Could I start receiving a notice prior to my due date from now on and they said they never heard of that but it would be an extra $15.00 handling fee to unlock the box from the inside. So my legal question is this, aren't they supposed to notify me that I am going incurr an extra charge within a certain period of time in addition to my regular fee especially since they didn't notify me in the first place.
3 Answers from Attorneys
Next time pay on time and don't lose important papers.
What happened to you happened to me last year. They did put the bill in my post office box last year a few days before it was due and I went to the counter to pay on the due date and there were too many people in line as usual at the post office. By the next morning they had locked my box and I paid it and they openned the box right away and no additional fee. That was last year. Now the post office is hungry as they are losing billions and are squeezing as much as possible from fees that don't have to be approved by Congress. Eventually they will lose more as they become less and less customer friendly and private businesses such as private post office box companies will take their business. There is nothing you can do about it except complain to your congressman or Senator. Maybe taking your business to a private post office box company that cares about your business is the solution. There is nothing special about boxes at the post office except the pain the ass that when certified mail arrives you have to get it at a special window that opens whenever they want instead of during the posted times. I feel your pain but nothing you can do and we can just hope that someday technology will make the whole U.S. postal service completely obsolete or Congress will finally let the private sector handle the mail, even if it costs more I am willing to pay it.