United States Postal Service: late delivery or service guarantee

Priority Mail Express has a money-back guarantee with the delivery date or time on its receipt. Ask for the postage refund 2 to 30 days after mailing.

ACredibility A · last verified 2026-10-12 · dossier 2026-10-12 · 98% official or government sources

What does this mean?

Grade A (high: almost everything comes from official pages read directly). 98% of 44 sources are the organization's own pages or government sites.

All United States Postal Service contacts Open in the interactive directory JSON

Collect

Priority Mail Express receipt (Label 11 customer copy) with the guaranteed date
tracking number

Steps

Check the guaranteed delivery date or time printed on the Priority Mail Express receipt.
Request the refund online, or at a Post Office with PS Form 3533 and the original receipt.
OnlinePriority Mail Express and extra-service refund request Sign-in required

More contacts for this issue

PhoneUSPS Customer Care Center (1-800-ASK-USPS) +1-800-275-8777

PhoneDomestic and international USPS Tracking line +1-800-222-1811

FormEmail Customer Service (Get Help Online)

Facts you can cite

Deadline
A Priority Mail Express refund request is due 2 to 30 days after the mailing date without extra services, or 30 to 60 days after mailing when extra services were bought.
Source: usps.com, verified 2026-10-12
Policy
The Priority Mail Express refund applies when the shipment did not arrive by the guaranteed delivery date or time shown on the receipt. Exceptions are in DMM 113 and 604.9.5.
Source: usps.com, verified 2026-10-12

If that fails, escalate

Go up one step at a time. Keep the reference numbers and dates from each contact.

Customer service
PhoneUSPS Customer Care Center (1-800-ASK-USPS) +1-800-275-8777
Written complaint
OnlineDomestic insurance claim (file, appeal and check status) Sign-in required
Insurance claim. Sender or recipient can file; a lost-item claim needs the original mailing receipt.
Executive office
MailUSPS Consumer Advocate Consumer Advocate, US Postal Service, 475 L'Enfant Plz SW, Washington DC 20260-2200
Final appeal for claims filed by mail; general complaints by letter.
Card or bank dispute
Fair Credit Billing Act billing-error and purchase-dispute rights (Regulation Z)
Electronic Fund Transfer Act error resolution and unauthorized-transfer liability (Regulation E)
Dispute with the seller who shipped the item.
Federal regulator
RegulatorUSPS Office of Inspector General +1-800-275-8777
Independent oversight of the Postal Service. Not a claims channel.

State agencies for this sector: your state’s attorney general. Find yours in the list of state agencies, or as JSON in states/<code>.json (for example states/ny.json).

Watch out

Online claims, service refunds and Informed Delivery need a USPS.com account in the person's name.
A lost-item claim needs the original mailing receipt or online label record, which the recipient often does not have; ask the sender or seller.
USPS may ask the claimant to bring the damaged item and packaging to a Post Office for inspection.

Let your AI agent handle this

Escalate Anything is a free, open-source MCP server for Claude, Cursor, VS Code, Gemini CLI, Codex and other AI apps. Your agent gets this playbook, keeps a case log with reference numbers and follow-up dates, and drafts each message for you to approve.

1. Set it up (needs uv):

uvx escalate-anything setup

2. Ask your agent:

My United States Postal Service delivery missed its guaranteed time on [date]. Use Escalate Anything to get the refund.

Source code, other install options and the Claude Code plugin