They never answer the phone. Unless the regular carrier is working the route (he's great), delivery is a total mess, sometimes not even being delivered some days. It seems the subs and/or newbies are clueless as how to handle Signature Confirmations and/or insured mail. read more

Slowest post office in the country- and I realize that's an ambitious claim. Only one person working the desk. They expect you to tape Priority boxes without access to a tape dispenser or scissors. Beautiful building, abominable service. read more

This was my first time visiting this location. I went inside directly to the desk to write addresses on my envelopes. Then I overheard a lady saying "I want to speak with your manager!" I don't know what was happening, but I ended up getting the same clerk who the lady had trouble with. I went up to her and asked if she could give me an International customs form (showing her the package). She asked where I was sending it to so I answered. After completing the customs form, I went back to her. She said, "YOU DIDN'T say that you were sending this to _________!" I said, "Yes, I did" Then, suddenly she flipped out-- "No you did not! I know how to do my job, and I absolutely DID NOT say that" The funny part is, at the end of our argument, she admitted that I did, but still tried to defend herself (her: "You did say that, but no" ???). Unfortunately, that was just the beginning. After having multiple miscommunications (and writing and rewriting addresses on the customs form and envelope), she said, "Ohhh my god!! You need to do it all over again." The other clerk who was handling the passport application seemed rude too. I overheard her saying, "You need to give me half a year (before the deadline) to submit this application. Why did you wait until now?" in an accusing tone. I heard the customer say, "Her (baby) dad suddenly got sick in Mexico, so we are visiting him." I felt bad for her needing to explain their situation to someone who was clearly not being respectful. I am never coming back to this USPS. read more

This is by far the meanest, most bitter, sarcastic purposefully not helpful post office I've ever been to. 2 times, I went there to mail express mail. I used the automated service, paid for the postage, put it on a form completed package and when I tried to mail it, the receptacle was full. When I tried to tell people in back, they just yelled to leave it on top. There were 5 of us waiting, and the mail carrier was late. We all had valuable packages that we weren't going to set on top for anyone to take. The carrier finally came out, a big, mean guy who wouldn't answer our questions. The second time I went, it was exactly the same scenario. The carrier is always 30 minutes late, so I have to stand and wait for him to finally show up because the receptacle is full. When he came out, I asked him if I could put my package in his bin. He wouldn't answer my question. He just said - "there are 3 drops over there". I said, I didn't see any other specific drops for express mail. He kept saying - drop it over there. I asked him then, can express mail go in any drop. His answer was "how long you been in berkeley". Then he asked "how many times you been to the post office here". He wouldn't answer my questions and was totally belligerent, mean, and purposefully evasive, as if, by not answering my questions, he could make himself feel more intelligent because he knew something I didn't. It was by far the weirdest exchange I've ever had with any public employee - or any employee of any public service, including stores, airlines, car rental, anything! I would give them a 0 star if I could. read more

The wait here is longer than at the old Ike's Place. And here, you don't leave with a delicious sandwich.

The reviewers are right. Long lines and not very helpful employees. I just tried to get some mail packing tape for a box I needed to seal. She said "we don't have that here, but I can sell you a roll".... Hmm, a post office doesn't have mail packaging tape?? So, you cannot afford to give me about 2 feet of plastic mail packaging tape? I only go to that location to buy stamps and I use the efficient machine which beats the human interaction in that hell hole of a post office. read more

you people need to learn to do your job. if i call at 4, please answer. i understand you close at 5, but that's a full hour before you should stop answering the phone. jesus christ. read more

I don't have much of value to add that hasn't already been said - leaving this review to state as of March 25, 2011, this location is still a hell hole. I've made it 27 years without ever having my mail lost or mishandled until I moved to Berkeley 2 months ago. The employees all have one foot in the grave and are pretty bitter about that. read more

I have never had a bad experience here and I visit the post office almost weekly. I never spent longer than 15 minutes waiting in line or been treated without a kind smile and efficient service. Seems like I am the only one though. Sad to hear they may close down. read more

All of the poor reviews for this beautiful and historic building are about bad service. I believe the USPS is trying to speed the demise of this irreplaceable building by understaffing it which thoroughly demoralizes these few overworked staff. Of COURSE Berkeley should keep one of its most prized architectural buildings. And obviously if the USPS allows us to keep it, they will again start staffing it appropriately. The economy's getting better, folks ... read more

went down on a saturday afternoon around 2pm to deal with a tricky situation and found both the counter staff I dealt with to be very helpful! read more

Terrible customer service including long lines and confusion among staff. Better management and improved morale would do wonders.

This post office is extremely understaffed. If you have to be helped by a person be prepared to wait a long time. The only time I like going here is when I get to use the automated machine to mail a package. Usually the line for that isn't too long. read more

literally the worst post office i have ever been to. la,Sacramento, long beach, bay area ,Seattle this is the worst. I was supposed to receive a package at my gf's house in berkely but forgot to write the apartment address. so i went there the same day according to the tracking which it has been arrived. the clerk who looks like the dude from napoleon dynamite told me it's not there everything gets sorted out within 4 hours. 4 hours when the package was supposed to be deliver at 10am and 4 hours it returns to the original place? wtf? I went there at 2pm. some bull shyt lies there. so i got home which is about 3 hours from bekeley and told the seller the package got returned so send it again. 2 weeks later seller told me he still haven't got it. seller sends item from LA. how long does it take to return a package from berkeley to LA so i called USPS they said it was there until 26th of September and it was just returned. DAFUQ? i waited 2 weeks for nothing. THIS PLACE NEEDS TO SHUT DOWN OR REPLACE PEOPLE, I know berkely is ghetto but comon people who work for the government have no common courtsey read more

Can we give 0 stars or minus stars? I haven't been to every post office in the US but I'd be surprised if there was a worse one. Never enough clerks, and the ones there don't care at all about giving service. Nothing but attitude. Why should they care? No incentive to try harder, can't get fired, will have a fat pension in a few years. I actually think a lot of them enjoy taunting busy customers by going as slowly as they can and giving people a hard time. I won't go into details of all the crappy experiences I have had there but it is really annoying to think that the clerks there get away with that kind of behavior. No private business in the world would have survived for 2 months with employees like that. I wish they would close it down and fire them all (and take away their pensions). read more

This is possibly the worst place in Berkeley. Yesterday I waited (standing) for over an hour to send a package. And this is normal at this location. I haven't encountered pleasant customer service either. If you want to feel angst and be in a bad mood, then this your place. read more

I wish I could give 0 stars. After waiting 20 minutes to fill out a passport application the staff who processes passports shift ended and I was asked to wait 20 minutes for the next agent to return from her lunch break. How difficult is it to coordinate shifts? Completely unacceptable service. If you're looking to renew a passport go anywhere else! read more

Worst shipping experience in my life. There is a female worker who is extremely impatient and unfriendly. When I had something unclear and I asked her, she replied in a really impolite manner. If the lady still works in I'd rather spend double amount of money on fedex. read more

The waits here are almost always absurdly long (like 30 minutes to an hour just to pick up a package), and I've had one lost package and one misdelivered package in just the last 60 days. Plus the rates for their "flat rate" boxes are worse than competitors (UPS, FedEx) for similar weights and sizes.... Going elsewhere for my package needs whenever I can from now on. read more

Until a year ago, I never had a complaint about the delivery of my mail. However last year, a lot of my mail wasn't delivered to my apartment building in Berkeley nor to my office suite in Oakland. Often it ended up in another tenant's box. The last straw though has been that my paycheck and a letter addressed correctly to me were left in a pile of junk mail outside the apartment building. It seemed that this mail hadn't even been sorted! I have called the post office to complain but the supervisor and the mail carrier keep telling me that they don't know how this happened or that they have delivering mail correctly for 20 years. I'm not even sure I trust having mail sent to a PO Box at this point. Would having post delivered to a PO BOX be more secure? read more

The slowest post office I've ever been to- it took 30 minutes for two workers to get through 6 numbers, and when I got to the front of the line to pick up a package, they told me that it wouldn't be there until later that day (despite the 9am pickup time on the notice slip). Incredibly disorganized and frustrating read more

I am extremely happy that this place will be closing. I had to wait 45 minutes just to ship a small package, but ended up leaving. It wasn't just waiting around though, it was waiting for the slow old guy who works there to stop talking obsessively to the customer who didn't want to buy insurance, and the young guy who helps his friends before waiting customers. Thankfully Fedex is right on the other corner, no wonder this place is shutting down! Everyone leaves for them! read more

Since my previous experience I have missed one of my packages and it was delivered to this post office. I have requested three re-deliveries since then, and curious as to why it was never delivered I went there again. It turns out this post office doesn't even look at their re-delivery requests. Are you serious? If your package is ever delivered to this post office, don't expect to ever see it, as this place is the epitome of wasted tax-payer money. read more

The outside of this building is something of a gem. Unfortunately they never bother to clean the windows or the walls which are disgusting and have been for years. This place always feels depressing. Lines are frequently (but not always) long. Buying stamps didn't work today at the self serve which they don't seem to bother keep functioning. The clerk was actually somewhat friendly today but often in the past they have been basicallyas enthasiastic as DMV employees and we all know what that means. read more

1 star is being nice they lost my package first of all then i called them, and they proceeded to put me on hold for 35min after I had briefly said 'Hi' and he said 'one moment'. So I hung up, called again and they never picked up. So i dialed one more time and they answered and then hung up the phone without a single word. I'm sorry the people who work here hate their job. But don't punish other people because of it. read more

This Place has the Poorest Customer service I have ever been too. Don't ever go there, unless you can wait for more than an hour. I waited in Line with a number for 1 hour to see them help 3 customers while there was a total of 30 people waiting to be helped. The cashiers even let people cut infront if they had a simple question. This makes me not ever want to do buisness there ever again. I went to the Post Office in East Oakland and I had superior service there. read more

This place is awful. I live in an apartment building with the mail boxes on the inside and the mail carriers are NOT supposed to leave packages sitting out in the open. Last time I ordered a package here it was a purse and they DID take it to the post office. When I went to pick it up I waited in line for almost an hour and when I finally got to the window, the lady I dealt with was actually very sweet. But her work ethic was not so sweet. I gave her my name and address three different times before she actually found my package and every time she walked away from the counter to the back room, she would stop and talk to a different employee. Now a while ago I ordered a package from a cosmetics company and I was tracking it online. It said that the carrier delivered it to my apartment on wednesday Feb 10th at 11:57 am. I saw this at about noon and went downstairs excited for my new makeup, only to find nothing there or in my mailbox. Thursday I went to the post office and waited in line for about 30 minutes behind a very angry woman with a baby and an antsy 2 year old. She had been waiting for over an hour and had to leave twice while waiting to take her daughter to the YMCA to use the bathroom because they wouldn't just be considerate and let her use the restroom at the Post Office. Eventually I got to the front of the line and they did not have my package. They had to check 3 times and made a huge deal about the fact that no one left me a delivery slip. The next woman I dealt with was a very nice lady named Susan that gave me a phone number to call and ask for her so I could give her my tracking number. I went home, got the number and called. A man answered and when I asked for Susan from the mail counter, he told me she was in a meeting. This was bullshit because I had been looking her in the eye not 5 minutes before. I never got to speak to her. Moral of the story, I never got my package. I hate that post office. I think I am just going to have everything delivered to my parents house in San Jose from now on. I'd rather make an hour and a half round trip drive than sit in that post office just to come out empty handed. GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER! read more

I have been a resident of Berkeley for about 4 years and HAD NEVER HAD BAD treatment from a Post Office until yesterday. I was there for a passaport application who by the way waited 1 hour and 30 minutes. The lady that was assisting had a very unpleasant attitude and when I asked questions she gave a sigh and shrugged her shoulders when I answered to her that "I needed pictures for my child's passport. As I was filling out the application quickly she and another co-worker were making fun of mexican people, making jokes and comments of speedy gonzales. !How Unethical! I was so upset that I told her I would rather finish the application at home and return some other day. read more

Most horrible office in the country. They lose your passport application and refuse to refund you. They waste so much of your time and pretend to be busy because they are so inefficient. They lie about following up on your request. Do NOT ever go in there again. read more

I had the same experience as the reviewer below me. Waited all day at home for USPS, only to come out in the evening and find in my mailbox that the notice that they tried to deliver my package but I wasn't there. They NEVER even knocked or rang my doorbell, it's like they went directly to put the notice in my box and leave. So I go to the post office the next day at 1pm only for them to tell me they misplaced my package. Then the man at the window gave me this blank look like that was the end of the story. So I ask what's the next step surely it can't just be "we lost it sorry our bad" So he gives me the number of the "delivery supervisor". When I first call they don't even pick up the phone. The second call they pick up then immediately put me on hold for over 30 min. I hang up and try again for the third time it rings for a long while then you can actually hear someone pick up the phone then hang it back up!!! I call again and there's no answer at all. So I go back to the window, and tell the man what just happened his response "Sorry that sounds frustrating." I'm like WHAT? That's your response! I ask would results happen faster if an actual employee calls the problem in. He says "oh I tried that one time and my supervisor just yelled at me and threatened to write me up" So I ask who's the supervisor that I can report this to. He says that's the number he gave me that I've been calling, and that I should try calling tomorrow between 6am-8am when they tend to answer the phones better. So basically the supervisor is only helpful for 2 hours out of the work day?!?!! It doesn't end there. I go home calling the number again all the way. I finally get a hold of someone and they tell me the supervisor is out and won't be back for another 15-20 mins they take my info and say that she will call me back when she gets in. An hour later no call. So I call back only to have someone pick up and immediately hang up the phone. They do the same thing every time I call back. Now I've been on the phone for 20 min with the USPS hotline to find the supervisor of the supervisor. Or anyone that can tell me what happens to my package. Something about this feels like something illegal is happening. "Lost" packages and a dodgey supervisor. The way that adds up seems wrong. read more

I love this place! & it will be sad to see it go. As a long time Berkeley resident & UC Berkeley employee I use this post office at least once a week. If you don't want to wait in line, there is a self-check out where you can use a credit or debit card. For the peach slip, there is another dedicated window. Perhaps some parentally-subsidized students can afford to mail their packages Fedex or some other more expensive way, but for the usual mail with regular postage or for those who are not sending all their messages via text or twitter, this is the place. Also, about 99% of the time, there are enough postal workers to keep the lines moving as fast as one can, and for the most part about 99% of the time, the workers are polite, helpful, and friendly. My only problems in the past have been with "hold mail" but thankfully, that incompetent mail person is no longer in my zip code. Perhaps some of these PO haters are not aware of the role of the US postal service in American society but when we lose our public services, they don't return. If you think the lines are slow or long now, wait till they move to smaller quarters with fewer employees. You may find yourself standing in a long line close to the old PO! Save the Berkeley Post office! read more

We just got a passport for our 15-month old this morning. I read all the horrible reviews but Berkeley Parent's Network listed this as an OK place to get passports and I trust them. There is one woman who was handling the passports and photos today (not sure how it is during the week.) Her name is Phyllis and she was amazing. She tried to take the picture of our son, who got all upset, but it didn't work. The place where they take photos is not very toddler friendly and he got scared and freaked out there, even though we were with him. She was patient and understanding. When we returned with a barely passable photo from Walgreen's she took us before the other 5-6 people/families in line, because she felt for us. She accepted the photo and helped us out. She competently and quickly did our paperwork and was very pleasant. I was thankful for her... waiting in line for these types of things is never fun, especially with a toddler, but Phyllis made it great. read more

ok, i am trying to send an international package, and i've done my time on their internet site, and made a few phone calls for clarification. they advised me to check in with the local post office about customs forms information, since they seem to want me to dismantle my nicely packed box and weigh each item and value it individually. i was hoping for some knowledgeable person who would know exactly what to do. get this: usps does not have working phone numbers for most of the berkeley locations, and this one does ring but THEY NEVER ANSWER IT. what a ridiculous and pathetic business our post office has become. how the hell are we supposed to get information??? read more

Let me start by saying they've lost my packages in the past. So I was supposed to receive 3 packages, it was taking a while so I went online only to find out that the carrier had "allegedly" tried to deliver my packages on May 3rd (roommates were home all day no one came) NO NOTICE WAS EVER LEFT. That was the biggest lie in the world. So I arranged for redelivery of my items, 1 of the packages was eventually delivered (wonder of wonders), however the other two....nope. Come to find out today that both had been returned to sender. I am SEETHING. The post in Berkeley is the worst I've ever experienced (I'm from Southern California originally where I never had mail issues). Not to mention that its miserable trying to go to this post office and get any help. Its atrocious delivery and atrocious customer service and what's more is that I've filed MULTIPLE claims about this with USPS and have yet to hear back. I start reading through the reviews below mine and see a girl with an almost identical experience. What a joke. Is it so much to ask that mail carriers...oh I don't know ACTUALLY DELIVER THE FREAKING MAIL!!!!! Obviously that's asking too much of Berkeley. read more

i had a problem with a lost package and i was told by an employee to call in the morning at 9am, and the phone has been ringing for almost 33 minutes now. pick up the phone! this is ridiculous! read more