CLEVELAND (WJW) — A FOX 8 I-Team investigation has found scribbles on Postal Service records.
And, as we looked into it, we found many people worried about losing homes, money and lawsuits because of what’s happening with legal documents in the mail.
Receipts from certified mail should show the name and address of a person accepting the mail. Instead, we reviewed receipts with scribbles for names and addresses along with “C-19” for COVID-19.
At the same time, we found people blindsided. Saying they never received their certified mail. Never signed for anything. Found out later, though, that mail, in fact, had been delivered. It had been left with someone, somewhere, but it was impossible to tell more than that from the records.
Adam Sywanyk told us it happened to him.
“I never seen the document,” he said. “I would say that they owe us an apology. I made note when I was in the post office, the one day, and nobody really had an explanation.”
Certified mail costs more, but the Postal Service says this way you can prove you sent something and get the signature of a person accepting it. Yet, again, we reviewed receipts with mothing readable except, in some cases, ‘C-19.’
The Postal Service says due to COVID-19, mail carriers can fill out the receipts themselves “in the presence of the customer.”
Still, multiple customers have told us of certified mail they never knew had been delivered.
The I-Team pushed for an explanation at local Postal Service headquarters trading emails with a spokesperson. We even asked how a scribble can be considered any kind of official record. We never got an answer to that question.
Former Ohio Attorney General Mark Dann now leads the Dann Law Firm.
He said, “It’s a scary, scary process…”
He’s seen this happening with his law firm, and he says it could cause people to lose homes, money and more.
“We’ve had clients in our office who literally were facing a sheriff’s sale on their house, foreclosure, that they didn’t even know was going on,” Dann said.
The problem now seen as so great, members of the local legal community are pushing to get something done about it. Some are even contacting federal lawmakers.
We’ll keep an eye on what comes out of that. Meantime, people like Adam Sywanyk can tell you what it’s like when your mail gets lost in the scribbles.