Mail is Exciting

Last Monday, one of my customer service reps took a call from a lady who wanted us to mail a hundred thousand pieces. She said she was doing that many a week. She sent a sample over and it was a very nice four color process mailpiece illustrating a large line of very expensive purses. The likes of Prada, Coach, Gucci and Luis Vuitton.

The next morning, a truck came in with her material but the driver announced that it was collect. My dock guy asked him who it was for and he said he couldn’t tell us. He asked the driver to show him what it looked like so he could know who to call. The driver refused. Then the driver walked to the back of his van, opened the door slightly and started talking on his cell phone. He seemed really nervous and the dock guy wondered if he was actually talking to somebody.

Eventually he determined that it was for the aforementioned lady that had called in the day before. We told the driver we wouldn’t pay for it and called the lady who said, “no problem, I’ll be right over to pay him for it!”

Five minutes later she wheels into the parking lot, pops out of her Ford Expedition and trots up to the loading dock, check in hand.

But, as she hands the driver the check, the back doors of the van burst open and a barrage of men in dark suits explodes onto the pavement throwing her to the ground and handcuffing her. All this as five more non-descript government cars come roaring up and our parking lot and dock area fills with FBI agents and Postal Inspectors.

They spent the next hour clad in latex gloves and methodically taking everything in her car out of her car and photographing it all. They towed her car away and she left in the back seat of one of the sedans with a lady agent.

I guess that means she won’t be a customer after all…