USPS getting heat from Boxes to Boots Charity
Boxes to Boots is a Connecticut-based charity which sends ‘Care packages’ to deployed service members, and has done so for years. Under its current leader, Kirsten Gauvin, it assembled over 1800 boxes of items like toiletries, snacks – pretty sure everyone here knows what a Care package is. This year they mailed out 1139 boxes to 30 units stationed in over a dozen countries, and paid out $7,600 in postage.
Sounds like a nice holiday story… but the charity says USPS has returned 884 boxes.
But after mailing them out, the nonprofit got back three-quarters of their care packages (884 to be exact) with the boxes marked return to sender, and the label “toiletries” circled in red ink. The last quarter of the care packages cleared customs and arrived at their destinations. “There was no explanation, just the word ‘toiletries’ circled with a red pencil,” Gauvin said. “No one can tell us what’s wrong with our boxes.”
As of Friday, Gauvin says Boxes to Boots has not received any more information from the United States Postal Service on what was wrong with its labeling; the group has never had shipping issues before. More than 100 boxes that have been returned are still unaccounted for in the mail, and the nonprofit has paid more than $7,600 in shipping costs on the incomplete order.
Note the numbers, though – 1139 shipped, 884 kicked back – leaving 250 or so shipped and delivered. If they were all marked and labeled the same, as Gauvin says, how did 250 go through? And if labeled as they have been for the last decade, why were the 884 rejected?
Gauvin says the group would be happy to resend the boxes with more detailed labeling if someone would tell them where their labeling fell short, so as not to have a repeat customs snafu.According to a spokesperson for USPS, U.S. Customs likely rejected the boxes because the labels were incomplete and did not provide sufficiently detailed descriptions of what was contained in the packaging. “USPS also requires a detailed description of each item in a package on the customs-declaration form: what the item is, what it’s made of, and its purpose — for example, ‘men’s cotton shirt’ rather than the general term ‘clothes,’” USPS spokesperson Amy Gibbs wrote to CT Insider.
I know it’s Postal’s busiest time of the year, but it sure seems they could stand to spend a half-hour with the charity folks and tell them what the labels have to look like now. According to USPS spox Amy Gibbs:
According to Gibbs, stricter requirements around the labeling of exports have been phased in by Customs and USPS over the past few years, including updates to the policy in April 2023 and September 2025 that now require every item, including small personal shipments, to provide a “clear, specific description” on the customs form.
Amy, Lauren – Lauren, Amy. Why don’t you TWO kids quite talking to the press and TALK TO EACH OTHER!
Sources: Stars & Stripes Fox News
Category: Dumbass Bullshit, Holidays
Lol.
Blaming Trump for their incompetence.
Obviously, they were sent to deployed service members in countries that don’t know what toiletries are…
We forget that so much of the world is still well behind the US in modern conveniences.
According to the article it was US Customs that kicked them back, not the country where they were sent.
Expecting the USPS to respond to ‘customer’ complaints is like expecting Nancy Pelosi to get sober and honest.
And for many of the same reasons.
Where there is no accountability, the attitudes of those engaged in the ‘services’ are best expressed as “sod off”