Following up on a report we did in August, NBC 5 Investigates is again testing the United States Postal Service to monitor mail delivery ahead of the November presidential election.
Letters sent from two post offices in two different North Texas cities led to two markedly different results where mail sent from Fort Worth arrived faster than letters mailed from Dallas to the same destinations on the same day.
In August, we sent letters from a post office in Dallas to locations across Dallas-Fort Worth and to our friends at other NBC stations nationwide. They sent us letters too, more than 150 in all. About 88% of the letters arrived within the 1-3 days the post office promises between most major cities.
This month, we expanded our test to include more letters going between more cities, this time sent on Friday, Sept. 11 from post offices in both Fort Worth and Dallas.
From the Fort Worth post office, it took only two business days to reach Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. From Dallas, it took six days for our letter to get to Chicago and five days to get to LA and New York.
Even letters sent from Dallas to Grand Prairie and to another address in Dallas took five business days from the Dallas post office.
When the letters arrived, we noticed something odd — the letters were not postmarked until Monday, Sept. 14, three days after they were mailed.