* Mail is delayed for days, especially bulk-rate mail that includes time-sensitive circulars and other advertisements.
* Tractor-trailers with mail are sometimes parked at stations to "hide" or not count the mail.
As a result of mail allegedly being undercounted at the Southwest Philadelphia processing plant, prompting the transfer of employees to other sites, and of a yearlong ban on overtime, there are fewer employees to process mail than in the past.
To cope with the resulting backlog, workers and supervisors have told the Daily News that workers in some cases hid and destroyed mail.
USPS spokeswoman Cathy Yarosky declined to address the allegations of falsified reports and mishandled mail, but said, "We take any allegation seriously.
"Our employees have always been encouraged to contact the Office of the Inspector General hot line (1-888-USPS-OIG) to report any alleged violations of our laws, rules and regulations."
Several employees who have brought the allegations to the OIG regional office and to the USPS headquarters in Washington say that they have gotten no response.
Some employees say that management retaliates against them if they identify problems to higher-ups. They say that their hours and work assignments are changed and that if they file an official complaint, they are fired.
The Daily News over the past week has detailed stories from postal customers about late, damaged and missing mail, as well as from postal workers who complain of chronic understaffing.
At one branch office, a onetime supervisor said: "I was told to lie about the amount of mail received at the station. We receive more mail than we're reporting.
"We're not giving the customers all the mail when it comes in. They hold back the mail so [the USPS] doesn't have to pay overtime."
Another postal employee said that the "clock rings" on the computer that tracks carriers' work time can be rolled back like an odometer.
