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Postal worker arrested for dumping 7,000 undelivered mail items, including vaccination tickets

30 Comments

Police in Tondabayashi City, Osaka Prefecture, have arrested a 20-year-old post office employee on suspicion of violating the Japan Postal Act after he disposed of around 7,000 pieces of undelivered mail.

Police said Yasuyuki Hara has admitted to the charge, Sankei Shimbun reported. He was quoted as telling police, “It was tiresome to deliver the mail, so I took them in my car and threw them away.”

Some of the discarded mail contained vaccination tickets sent by local municipalities to citizens to be inoculated against COVID-19.

Police said Hara emptied bags of mail in a wooded area in Sakai City’s Mihara Ward on Jan 16. He was seen by a passerby who contacted police.

Hara told police he started taking undelivered items home autumn because he couldn't be bothered delivering them. About 4,000 pieces of mail were found at his home.

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30 Comments
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Not again !! - Our local postman says they’re now terrible understaffed, the young don’t last long and the elderly are overworked.

*- Jan 24, 2020: “Japan postman 'could not be bothered' to deliver 24,000 items”*

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51236136

18 ( +19 / -1 )

Throwing vaccination tickets away? He needs to go to jail for that. Is practically harming people lives.

21 ( +24 / -3 )

Glad I didn't live on his route. Delivering the mail is guaranteed to be somewhere in the job description. Hara should've read that part.

14 ( +15 / -1 )

gakinotsukaiToday  05:29 pm JST

and one other article to slam down the "professionalism" of the japanese workers cliché

Yea, one in 100,100 JP workers really slams that cliche. lol

Only in Japan does JP deliver at 7:50am, on weekends and even when letters from overseas have the address all screwed up. I have to assume you have no first hand experience with the clown show they call the USPS.

11 ( +14 / -3 )

In summer, a JP guy was so trashed by the heat, I did offer a glass of water which he refused, panting: "**I don't have the time. Too many deliveries." The guy looked like he was going to collapse...**

ive got a local delivery lady whos really friendly and loves her job, but in summer she looks exhausted, weve always 500ml got bottle water in the fridge, we give her bottles every second day in the middle of summer

16 ( +17 / -1 )

I mean i get work is tiresome but this is ridiculous living with 4000 pieces of mail in my house would be more annoyimg thsn delivering them but thats just me.

7 ( +8 / -1 )

Police in Tondabayashi City, Osaka Prefecture, have arrested a 20-year-old post office employee on suspicion of violating the Japan Postal Act after he disposed of around 7,000 pieces of undelivered mail.

Entrusted with delivering the mail..... 20 years old. Am I the only one that sees something wrong here?

Hara told police he started taking undelivered items home autumn because he couldn't be bothered delivering them. About 4,000 pieces of mail were found at his home.

I bet any money he didnt say this, he said something more along the almost impossible to translate with out a longer explanation.... mendokusai! A commonly heard comment frequently used by many in the younger generation.

Japan is changing quickly before everyone's eyes, and the people here are in for a rude awakening when realize, too late, that the pampering of children is blowing back in their faces!

9 ( +11 / -2 )

Yes JP ended Saturday delivery of regular mail. Parcels, express and registered mail delivery continues. Still blows away USPS that only doesn't deliver on Sundays/Holidays but is a master of lost articles, incapable of delivering even the slighthest illegible or mispelled address, and will frequently deliver to the wrong mailbox.

No doubt JP is overloaded and that's something they need to address. But this one incident hardly reflects on all of JP much less all of Japan.

8 ( +9 / -1 )

Yup, that’s what happens when these students don’t do part time jobs or chores in high school or college.

They just study study study. They become utterly useless when they start working full time jobs.

In addition, I wouldn’t be surprised if the post office were understaff and over working their employees.

I’m sure you can blame both sides of this incident.

2 ( +7 / -5 )

I mean, there are exceptions as this, but all in all, people complaining about Japan's post system have no idea how good it actually is comparing with post in other countries! They should not be giving such a high responsibility job to nowadays generation X 20 years old boys who just realised there is something else out there besides Twitter, Instagram and TikTok..

11 ( +12 / -1 )

Poor guy. People with menial jobs shouldn't be forced to work hard. It's fatal to work in a unfulfilling job. Menial jobs should be only 2 hours per day and then the rest should be spent on things that are productive and fulfilling.

-4 ( +2 / -6 )

Japanese government and the companies are abusing the heck out of the reliability of the postal system which seems to start to backfire. There should be no place for paper vaccination tickets nor any kind of application to start/stop services, receive bills, etc.

3 ( +4 / -1 )

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their . . . Meh. Can’t be bothered.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

OssanAmerica: "....on weekends and even when letters from overseas have the address all screwed up."

THAT is the thing that's actually one in "100,100", but as always Japanese people (or those who wish they were) swell with pride of the one or two stories they've heard where it happened. I'm not saying the postal system here isn't great; quite frankly, I think they do an excellent job and are far better than most nations' postal services, but you're exaggerating the other way around.

There's a lot NOT to like about the postal system here, too, like the red-tape over trying to do the smallest thing like change an address, or send a package over seas if you want to by regular air-mail, or the antiquated systems of paying things, or even the horrible English services on the ATM (I use the Japanese, but have tried to English just to see how it goes... the menu goes from about 10 options to one, and then says it doesn't provide what you want to do in English). And of course, the hours of operation leave something to be desired unless you are a homemaker, unemployed, or have weekdays off. In one job I had here I had to use paid holiday to go to the post office while it was open.

-2 ( +3 / -5 )

Oh wow! Why work in the job that he hates it?

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

Tough job day after day bringing unwanted bills and advertisements to people.

There's a great deal of truth in that. My mailbox was routinely filled with superfluous junk advertising all sorts of stuff I didn't need or want. But there it was. Every day. It went straight from the mailbox to the recycle bin provided. A waste of finite resources.

Perhaps force advertisers to hire (and I know some do) their own couriers and ensure that the postal system deals with legitimate mail.

Good luck with getting things like vaccine tickets delivered online. Perhaps a better chance if they went via fax. (Wink-wink!)

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Well they did basically ask a child to do the job of an adult so...  ¯_(ツ)_/¯

-3 ( +1 / -4 )

Postal theft is terrible, especially people chucking away large quantities of mail. Some mail can be life-changing when it is delivered, or deeply damaging when it is not received. It is a cruel and callous act. Throw the guy in prison. If you are not up to a job, just quit, rather than damaging people's lives.

Losing SAL has increased the cost of getting anything from Japan, but may have been inevitable as there are so few passenger flights. JP haven't restricted mail to Europe as much as they have to the US and Australia. Airmail from Japan is still quite quick. Quicker than from the US where USPS packages often cross several states before being put on a plane across the pond. Post from down under has been ropey. I had three pieces of mail from Australia arrive on the same day, posted the week before, a month before, and two months before. Generally, I find the slowest way to get anything is Ebay's Global Shipping Programme. It's expensive for small items, although it can work out cheaper for heavier items. Not sure why Americans cannot be trusted to post their own packages.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Royal Mail used to make a first delivery around 6-8am and then a second at lunch time. Now we get one delivery a day. However, our posties are friendly and reliable, and have kept delivering through the pandemic. Most UK posties have a regular route for period of time, so they get to know many of the people they are delivering mail to. This helps when addresses are badly written or printed, or labels have been ripped off.

Appreciate your posties, wear a mask when answering the door to them, use proper adhesive postage stamps (not labels or self-adhesive stamps that cannot be soaked off paper), write addresses (and return addresses) neatly, and pack things securely.

wtfjapan's bottles of water are a really good idea.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

@602Miko…

Oh wow! Why work in the job that he hates it?

Because it’s Japan! Around 7 out of 10 workers hate their job but still do it just to get money! Gone are the days that Japanese took so much pride in their job and did it diligently! Most are just in it for the cash in order to survive the hardship of life same as in other countries!

There are so many people out there who would love delivery man jobs ( sort of their dream jobs ) but are never employed by Japan Post! Some people who dislike that particular job still apply and get recruited and the end result is what the article above is about!

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Tip of the iceberg. Tough job day after day bringing unwanted bills and advertisements to people.

Unwanted bills....... dont ring them up and you wont get them!

Oh and those "advertisements" for the overwhelming majority of companies they are NOT sent through JP as the cost of using JP is enormous. I know through my own job and experience, those are placed in post boxes by private delivery companies.

People assume it's JP, and while some are, I would say well over 90% are not.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

He went totally postal! He quit delivering but kept getting paid

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

People should keep in mind that JP delivers metered/stamped mail packages etc etc

Only an idiot would use JP to deliver advertisements or flyers through JP. Firstly it's done as newspaper inserts, which covers large areas is really expensive on a piece by piece basis.

Delivery services, which are are "posting" here, have people go door to door and put them in mail boxes, don't think that Dominoes send those flyers out in the mail, they would be out of business in no time if they did.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Already burned out on life by age 20.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Postal worker = deliver mail. If you can't even do that, then what good are you?

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Not doing your job have serious consequences even if your job is of little consequence (like cleaning some public space) but this guy choose precisely the job that make his actions a serious crime, if he knew he was not cut to do this quitting and becoming unemployed would have been a much better option.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

snowymountainhellJan. 19  05:00 pm JST

Not again !! - Our local postman says they’re now terrible understaffed, the young don’t last long and the elderly are overworked.

- Jan 24, 2020: “**Japan postman 'could not be bothered' to deliver 24,000 items**”

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51236136

We had a similar incident recently in Alabama state. This neglectful puke needs some prison time.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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