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Rick McQuillanBarry, you made a good point about the accountability of registered mail. When a clerk accepts the registered mail parcel from the customer, the clerk is then responsible for the parcel. When the parcel is put on the truck, the truck driver signs for the parcel. When the truck driver gets to the processing plant, another clerk signs for the parcel to relieve the responsibility from the truck driver. This process is supposed to happen at each transfer point all the way through the delivery process. The problem with the tracking is that the local Post Offices do not have access to any of tracking records other than the acceptance at the local Post Office, and the delivery scans when the customer signs for the parcel.
I think the reason that you have a problem with your local PO is that the clerks may not know exactly how to approach this problem, since very little information is available to them. (Plus the fact that some clerks may be a little lazy). Each Post Office sends their registered mail to a processing plant, where registered mail clerks handle these parcels. These registered mail clerks do have access to the records that are needed in order to determine where a particular registered mail parcel is located, and who is currently accountable for that parcel. When one of my customers has a problem with registered mail I call the accountable mail clerk at the processing plant, and within an hour the clerk will let me know the status of the parcel.
Hopefully, in the near future, all of this information will be available online at each local Post Office, so we will be able to track individual registered mail parcels throughout the entire process.
In the past the Postal Service has had problems with theft of registered mail, but in the past 3-4 years we have really tightened up the security and accountability procedures, and the theft/loss problems have been drastically reduced. Unfortunately, the accountability process does slow down the delivery by a day or two, but the extra security justifies the time loss.
If you do run across a clerk who "balks" at your request to check on registered mail, ask to speak to a supervisor. The clerk may have a line of people waiting for service, but hopefully the supervisor will be more familiar with registered mail procedures and he or she may be able to do a little better job of helping you with your problem.
Thanks,
Rick