Never underestimate your role in safeguarding America’s trust in the U.S. Postal Service. While we get ideas for new work from various sources, including Congressional requests and mainstream media reporting, the most prominent avenue for reporting fraud, waste, and abuse within USPS is the OIG Hotline. In the first half of fiscal year 2023, we received 88,691 Hotline contacts alone.

Like a well-oiled machine, the OIG Hotline gathers information around the clock from Postal Service employees, customers, the Postal Regulatory Commission, the Postal Inspection Service, and the general public. It functions as a type of triage — sorting the incoming concerns and complaints and fielding them to the appropriate area within our agency or to another organization if the complaint doesn’t fall within our jurisdiction. (For more information on what falls under our jurisdiction, click here.)

Does the information received point to a systemic or postal-wide issue that merits review? Is it a complaint of criminal conduct? Our trained, capable staff act quickly to ensure the information gets to the right people as quickly as possible.

A common source of hesitation people have when they suspect or witness misconduct is a fear of reprisal for coming forward with that information. Our Hotline can provide anonymity, and we have specialized processes in place to handle whistleblower complaints to prevent any possible retaliation.

The preferred way to file a complaint is here, on our website. We also have a whistleblower complaint form if you fear retaliation because you’ve previously reported some sort of fraud or misconduct. Again, it’s important to check whether a complaint falls within our jurisdiction before filing it — this saves you and our Hotline valuable time and effort.

What about complaints on social media? We read social media comments and direct messages posted to our social media accounts. Often, we request users file their complaints with our Hotline. There’s only so much people want to share on social media. That’s why our online forms are the complete package: they collect key information for a formal and potentially actionable complaint.