From belated bills to missing magazines, BU mail a mystery

To Boston University sophomore Cathleen Cueto, getting mail is like a winning the lottery.

“You try not to expect anything because you’re betting that you’ll be disappointed, but when you do get something, it’s the best feeling in the world,” she said.

A college student’s mailbox can be filled with anything from a long awaited love letter, to a care package filled with Grandma’s cookies or even the dreaded credit card bill. No matter the content, the mail is welcomed.

For many Boston University students, however, Grandma’s cookies arrive stale and their bills are a month late. Or sometimes, the mail doesn’t show up at all.

Lisa Petrillo, a College of Arts and Sciences junior who lived in Myles Standish Hall last semester, said she didn’t receive all of the birthday cards sent to her this past October.

“I got one card, but four other relatives sent me cards as well,” she said. “I checked with them all, and they had the right address.”

Petrillo said she also didn’t receive all of her birthday cards when she lived in Warren Towers her freshman and sophomore years. “I complained my sophomore year and the student working at the Warren mailroom advised me to tell my relatives that they shouldn’t send cash or checks in birthday cards because sometimes people purposely go through the cards looking for money,” Petrillo said.

This semester, Petrillo is studying in England and said she has no problems with overseas mail.

College of Engineering sophomore Joe Jacobi knows of the Warren mailroom all too well from experiences last year.

“People in the mailroom kept stealing my Sports Illustrated magazines,” he alleged. Jacobi said he got the weekly magazine about four times in total, and when they did arrive, they were about a month late. When he asked the students working in the mailroom, he said they claimed not to know what he was talking about. He confronted them three times last year. This year he lives in South Campus where the U.S. Postal Service delivers his mail.

Cathleen Cueto and her roommate, Sita Legac, live in Myles Standish Hall. Both lived in Warren Towers last year and remembered the mail being a little slow, but they almost always got their mail. “Once I missed a phone bill, but that was the extent of it,” Cueto said.

But Cueto and Legac said there are problems in Myles.

“All of my bills from January never showed up until the middle of February,” Legac said. “I had to call up AT’T, GAP and Citibank and beg them to waive the late fees.”

This has happened once before to Legac, but she didn’t complain to the mailroom because she didn’t feel it was worth the effort.

“I am currently waiting for a valentine sent on Valentine’s Day,” Cueto said. It also took her two weeks to get a package from J. Crew that was due to be delivered in three to five days. When she called up the clothing company and was told a delivery to her school address had been confirmed, she went to the mailroom and told an employee of her situation. She was told that if the package wasn’t in the mailroom, then it isn’t the BU mailroom’s responsibility, and she should contact the U.S. Post Office.

When Cueto called the Kenmore Post Office and asked if they would have her package, the woman who answered laughed and said all BU mail is distributed through the BU mailrooms and is thus BU’s responsibility. She received her package the next day from the BU mailroom, though Cueto said she was annoyed and confused.

“They really have control over your mail, which is like control over your life,” she said. “They are tampering with our mail and worst of all, I don’t know who to complain to.”

Marc Robillard, director of the Office of Housing, said students with complaints should first talk to the mailroom supervisor in one of the six BU mailrooms. If the problem persists, students can talk to the Resident Hall Director, and if necessary, the Office of Housing can get involved.

BU spokesman Colin Riley said mail is first delivered to the Kenmore Post Office and then sorted. The mail is then delivered to the dormitories before being distributed to each student’s mailbox by BU mailroom employees.

Riley, who used to work for the U.S. Postal Service, said tampering with mail is a federal offense. He urged anyone who finds that his or her mail has been tampered with to talk to a mailroom supervisor immediately.

“Mail is not generally lost or stolen,” Riley said. “But we want people to be assured that everything is treated properly, so people have to let us know of any problems.”

Robillard contended that given the amount of mail that goes through the BU system, there are few complaints. “We only deliver the mail we receive,” he said.

When asked about the mail delays, Robillard said, “We encounter delays when we have to redirect mail because the box number is wrong.” Holiday mail can also cause problems, Robillard said, noting the especially heavy mailing period around Valentine’s Day.

The most important thing to remember is the slightest mistake on the mailing address can reroute your mail. “It is critical that mail sent to students be in the correct format,” said Robillard, noting that even writing “Post Office Box” instead of “Box #” can send a letter to a completely different location.

Most letters are hard to trace because they aren’t insured or certified. “If it’s something of value, it should be shipped in a way it can be traced,” Robillard said.

And what about the misdirected mail that is addressed to Joe Shmoe who used to live in your room last year? According to Robillard, Joe Shmoe should have requested a change of address form and a forwarding card from the mailroom before he moved out of his dorm.

It is also the student’s responsibility to inform magazines, credit card companies and any other billing companies of an address change, a dictum many students were unaware of.

“I thought they automatically forwarded our BU mail back to our home addresses over the summer,” Legac said.

Cueto also said she was unaware of a forwarding card. “I have seen misdirected mail thrown away,” she said. “I didn’t know that we were responsible for informing BU that we changed our address.”