Missing Your Coupon Inserts? The Post Office May Have Trashed Them

It’s something any good couponer would crave: stacks and stacks of RetailMeNot Everyday coupon inserts. Unfortunately, these particular inserts never got to their intended recipients, and no one ever got to use them – because the post office threw them away.

That was the unfortunate fate of months’ worth of undelivered inserts that U.S. Postal inspectors found stashed in a storage unit belonging to a Virginia mail carrier, who said he was “too stressed” to deliver it.

Jason Delacruz of Virginia Beach is due to be sentenced next month, after pleading guilty to delay or destruction of mail, a federal crime. Delacruz had been working as a mail carrier for about a year when a curious citizen saw him unloading mail into a storage facility back in May 2019. The suspicious onlooker took photos and provided them to the post office.

Postal inspectors identified and interviewed Delacruz, who initially denied doing anything at the storage facility. When confronted with the photos, however, he admitted everything.

According to court records, Delacruz said he couldn’t “make time” and felt “pressured” to complete his route but found himself unable to do so. So he admitted to renting the public storage unit for $49 per month to stash the mail he couldn’t deliver. He said he intended to deliver the mail when he found the time, but fell further behind and was never able to.

Inspectors searched the storage unit and reported that they “found bundles of mail stacked all along the backside of the unit.” Among the undelivered items were nearly 100 pieces of first-class mail, including important papers like bank statements and tax return documents. They also found more than a hundred magazines, and nearly 5,000 pieces of “assorted advertisement mail” – including six bundles of RetailMeNot Everyday coupon inserts that were meant to be delivered to local residents.

Delacruz denied stealing or destroying any mail. So once Postal Service employees recovered the items from the storage unit and sorted them, they were able to deliver the delayed first-class mail.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the bundles of coupon inserts. Even though many of the coupons inside were still valid, “because the advertisement mail was not timely delivered,” the Postal Service explained, “it was discarded.”

So if you live in Virginia Beach and abruptly stopped receiving RetailMeNot Everyday coupon inserts in the mail, now you know why. And now you know where they are – in the dumpster.

It’s the same ignominious fate that befell years’ worth of RetailMeNot Everyday inserts in Missouri, in a case that came to light just over a year ago. A local resident said she watched suspiciously for years, as postal workers drove up to the trash bin at her apartment complex and tossed something inside. That “something” turned out to be bundles of undelivered ads and RetailMeNot Everyday coupon inserts, which postal workers apparently decided not to bother delivering. The U.S. Postal Service disputed the story and denied that any of their employees were trashing ads and inserts, but were never able to explain exactly who did it and why apartment residents hadn’t been receiving their coupons for years.

As for Delacruz, he faces a maximum penalty of five years behind bars, when he’s sentenced on February 12th. And local residents should be receiving their mail, and their mailed coupon inserts, again. In the meantime, let this case serve as a cautionary tale. If your mailed inserts suddenly stop showing up in your mailbox, better stake out the local storage facility and have your camera handy – just in case.

Background image source: Rusty Clark ~ 100K Photos