Many of us had a package or letter that arrived late over the holidays, but we understood that the massive influx of packages was causing the problem. Now, more than a month into the new year, things are not really improving.
Helen Forester is among those with late-arriving bills.
"Actually, I have one that was dated Dec. 24, and I didn't get it till the first week of January," she said.
Frances Johnson was dealing with a late letter to the IRS, and Laurie Brickner got dinged for a late home owners association payment to her condo board.
Brickner works at a bank, where she now gets complaints from customers about missing bank mail. "It turns out a lot of people are not getting the checks they’ve ordered," she said. "And also if they open up a new account and want a debit card, there’s a delay in getting that."
The U.S. Postal Service says there are two main reasons for all these delays.
One, more people are shipping a lot more things during the pandemic, and two, staffing issues with many workers out on quarantine. USPS said in a statement it is "experiencing unprecedented volume increases and limited employee availability due to the impacts of COVID-19."
And a report from NPR said, "there's no end in sight." It says recent postal budget cuts have been devastating, with mail piling up in some sorting centers.
We asked on Facebook and got almost 500 comments about late mail. Among them, one person said it took 17 days to get a rent check to their landlord, while another person got an insurance bill on Jan. 16 that was due on Jan. 13.
Your best bet may be to switch to paperless billing so there's no risk of a bill arriving late.
