Mail delays affecting local online business

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) — The new postmaster says removing sorting machines and other cost-cutting isn’t slowing down mail.

At least one Lexington business claims otherwise and worries the problems may end up costing her her livelihood.

Elizabeth Slone owns Kitty’s Loo, an online business that sells cat toilet-training kits.

She sends her products priority mail only – something that usually takes around two to three days to get to customers. It’s been taking up to two to three weeks lately.

Slone’s received several emails from customers asking for a refund because the order was taking so long to get to them.

“As a whole, yes it looks bad for Kitty’s Loo and that’s not the case,” says Slone. “It’s actually the post office.”

She sells through her website or Amazon, and not being able to trust delivery ends up costing her hundreds of dollars in refunds.

“It’s affecting livelihoods,” says Slone.

As the complaints mounted, she started tracking her shipments. She started getting “no status”.

“Or it would be stuck in some area of the country where it hadn’t moved so it was just sitting there and that’s where it kind of bothered me because why isn’t this moving when it’s priority mail,” says Slone.

She thinks it’s because mail sorting machines were unplugged and removed. Postal service leaders say the machines were removed because of declining mail volume.

“You’re talking thousands of letters that go through these machines at a fast pace and I know, I used to work for the post office,” says Slone.

Without sorting machines, she says workers are having to sort more mail by hand. She thinks this is causing the back-up.

“Why are they doing it right now? One – during a pandemic and two – during a very important election,” asks Slone.

Slone has complained regularly and says the problems haven’t been as bad in the last week but delays still are happening.

Postal officials couldn’t be reached for comment but 10 days ago, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said he was stopping the changes until after the November election.