Today I read in the newspaper, that a postman in the north of Germany had 30.000 letters and postcards in his apartment. He did not deliver them but was not abel to throw them away either. He hoarded them for four years!
I remember that I read a very similar story about a postman in Austria last year, though he “only” hoarded 14.000 pieces of mail.
Do you know similar stories?
Nothing like that, but sometimes I get the impression that my post(wo)man hoards the mail, because sometimes we get no mail for two weeks and then our mailbox is full to the brim! Once I got 23 postcards on one single day!
Was it his own mail or he was stealing mail?
This has happened to me quite often. I think it’s because the USPS is understaffed and may not actually deliver/pickup flat mail every day like they used to, but they won’t publicize that.
It’s fairly common here (workers hoarding mail). There was even a very popular situation comedy here where one of the cast members who worked for the USPS, did as little work as possible. One day his friends went to a storage facility to retrieve from his unit something and found 12 large sacks of undelivered mail.
Last year in the news in Finland there was one, where a young carrier (not adult) had hidden mail to her work place during a couple of years.
I don’t understand how such young person is working as a mail carrier, since here it happens during the day, and a child of that age should be in school. I feel really sorry for this person, as her mother had died, and apparently she didn’t know how to search help and wanted to make it look like everything is ok 
And of course sad for the ones who didn’t get their mail, but no one had complained more than normal.
(Things like this makes me really dislike the attitude often here, how someone is so good and admirable when they dispite of what happened keep up with the studies and work, or both. And how is it possible to give a responsibility to carry valuable mail, and the carrier being so young that they are not even legally responsible, if they don’t do it 
(this had continued this, and later was responsible))
Not actual stealing hoarding, but sometimes I think my mail just sits somewhere until a bag is full. Today I got PenPal letters from 5 countries, in different parts of the world, different continents. All sent at different times. What are the plans odds??
yes, I remember that, too (I always read the Helsingin Sanomat)
It is interesting that though these people do not deliver the mail (due to exhaustion or mental overload, who knows), they do not throw it away, probably out of respect.
I remember reading on the news here in Italy that postal mail sacks (with a hundred kilos of mail) were found thrown in a ditch years ago…
(I was thinking that at least the mail who have been hoarded at the postal worker’s house could still be mailed! Do you think they will?)
I do hope, if they find mail that hasn’t been delivered, it will still be delivered.
After all, sometimes one reads about letters or cards, that arrive YEARS later!
I also really hate, when there is an accident which affects snailmail…
Such news always make me nervous. 
Sometimes due to holidays and festivals my mails are getting less importance and delivered on next one two days, but i receive mails regularly, no hoarding of mails
This is very sad to hear this, as a Mail Carrier. The day we receive our mail from the truck is the day we deliver it, where I work in 
I hope those who do such things are justly punished (as in lose their jobs). That is not right at all😡
Wow, I can’t imagine why someone would hoard thousands of mails or even throw away kilos of them. I would feel very guilty for the rest of my life if I did that.
I never heard of similar extreme story, other than couriers occasionally hoard several mails per week so that they can be sent at once. But I don’t have much problem in that, because I understand postcards and letters are not considered priority and are very light. Even more so if a courier’s salary affected by numbers or weight of items they carry each day, while they have to pay some delivery costs (like gas) on their own. As long as they are delivered safely in the end, I won’t judge.
Thankfully because of the barcodes that Indonesian Post sticks on mails lately, I can see that my received postcards are mostly delivered as soon as possible after it reached the Delivery Center in my city. So I know my postman don’t hoard them. They are often stuck in main office (custom?) in Jakarta instead.
Unfortunately I know those news pretty well. There are each year some of them in the news with different cases. 
There was a time pretty much of our own mail “got lost” and we thought that we also had a mail carrier who didn’t do his job well.
I think these people are overstrained with their work. They first begin to collect because they hope they can deliver the next day … this doesn’t work and the undelivered mail gets more and more … and the masses of mail stresses the people even more so that their situation gets worse every day.
That’s discouraging 
and it’s a shame they’re so overwhelmed and understaffed. I often wonder if post office staff /mail person somewhere hoards my mail because I too don’t receive anything for days/weeks and then BOOM! Big delivery from near and far. Since becoming active again on PC recently, I know I’ve sent out at least 100 cards but only received like 20. I should inquire about this
Things like this would also give the postal system a bad reputation, and negatively effect the conscientious postal workers, I would imagine.
We love our regular mail carrier. He’s faithfully delivered the good (postcards and pen pal letters 
) and the bad (my parents’ ashes…). It’s the substitutes that frustrate me a little. LOL
Those stories unfortunately happen (in Germany) quite regularlay. I am having the feeling to reading things like this every year at least once. Fortuntately letters and postcards sent with Deutsche Post (German Post) with the new QR-codes can be tracked easily and so one can see at least at which point the “mistake” most likely happened/s.
Example: https://www.deutschepost.de/de/s/sendungsverfolgung.html?piececode=a4010003eb001007a325
do you actually do that? track your mail? I have never tried that.
BUT I ordered a 19th-century print from Austria last October. It never arrived and I got my money back. Was very sad, as it was an original print and a X-mas present for my mum, who is a collector. And yesterday they delivered it!!! I do not know whether someone got so everwhelmed that they just stuffed in somewhere, but I am happy.
Not about letters and postcards, but there was once an urban legend on Brazilian Post Office that undelivered packages would sit on the office for some time and then be auctioned among the mail workers. Some mailmen pretended the recipient wasn’t home with the hope the could keep the delivery, until the Post Office explained that wasn’t true.