Help dealing with USPS and recurring lost mail

I agree with your husband: the new carrier is stealing your mail. Don't give her any more packages. Switch carriers or go to the post office.

I called the 800 number for USPS and after a 5-10 minute wait on hold and several tiers of phone options got a friendly, personable fellow who patiently listened to my story of woe and wrote up a description of my issue (and read it back to me for my review), including all four tracking numbers. He said the issue was significant enough that he wasn't going to bother sending it to the local office for them to handle, but that he was going to immediately elevate it to consumer affairs who would be investigating. He said "I can't promise we'll find your packages, but I can guarantee this will cause a number of people in that post office to freak out a little in the next two weeks." He also opined that Mr. Arnicae, in his opinion, is likely accurate "Sounds like mail theft to me. You'd think they'd be smarter than that, but it happens, it does!" Thanks for all the advice people. Fingers crossed. I'd particularly like to retrieve the bday gifts, one was homemade and took me several months to create. :(

Don't contact the Post Office. Contact the https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/. Call your local field office. I advise calling, faxing or writing a letter. Works better with law enforcement.

Once upon a time in the early 00s, I lived in an affluent suburb of Seattle where I had a pretty serious problem with my mail carrier. Every once in a while I observed that I'd get a "second notice" for a bill I didn't remember receiving a first notice for, and sometimes I had an inkling that I was missing other mail, but it took me a while to realize just how much of my mail was going missing. Two things wound up convincing me I had a serious issue.. the first was a magazine gift subscription my mother sent me; I didn't want it and so after I received an issue I called the publisher to ask whether I could cancel the gift subscription or have it credited to my mother's subscription. I discovered during that conversation that the subscription had been started 4 months previously but I'd only received one issue, which was a bit of a surprise. The real kicker was my tax refund check, however -- it disappeared without a trace and I had been rather counting on it. Eventually I was able to get it reissued several months later but that was the last straw for me. So.. I went down to the area post office. Asked to speak with the local postmaster. Told him that I believed I was missing mail and explained my reasons for thinking so. He assured me that he would look into the matter and get to the bottom of it, then turned to walk back into the back office. I said: "I'm sorry to have to say this, but I believe you're lying to me." The postmaster turned around and said: "Why would you say a thing like that?" I replied: "Because you never asked either of the things that would be most useful to know if you were really planning to investigate. You don't know my name or my address." I still can't say whether the postmaster was just uninterested in pursuing complaints or whether (as I have long suspected) they knew they had a problem carrier but were either unwilling or unable to do anything about that person but the results were more or less the same. I moved not long thereafter so I never did achieve any sort of resolution, but I live now in a small town where my mail carriers are as wonderful as the Seattle-suburb carriers were terrible. (The carriers I have now will climb three and a half flights of stairs from the street to reach my front door to deliver a package and will leave the parcel inside my door for me if I'm not home, so that it doesn't get rained on. They're seriously awesome.) Sometimes you get a bad carrier and/or a bad post office. You can (and should) complain about it through official channels -- if they're stealing or dumping your mail it's very likely there are other victims as well -- but it's still wise to avoid them now that you're aware of the problem. Take your packages to a third-party shipping store if you have to, or take them to the post office if you can stand to do so, but don't just hand them to the carrier when you know that's a recipe for problems.

Many USPS offices have a drop-off area for click and ship packages. You won't get a receipt for them, but you probably don't have to wait in the line and can just hand the package over. You could also create a form that you ask your carrier to initial once you hand over packages. Something that lists tracking numbers and confirms that they picked it up. If it is your carrier stealing, they may not be so bold if they know that you had them initial something that can be taken to a supervisor. A complaint letter addressed to carrier's manager and postmaster for your region can also get some attention.

I'd start taking pictures of the postal worker holding the boxes with the tracking numbers clearly visible "for insurance purposes".

I think you've found the solution, but I just want to add, as someone who ships quite a lot for Etsy, that my postal carrier scans things right on my porch. They carry the scanners right with them, and there is no earthly reason that s/he cannot do it right in front of you. So, if you need to ship from home again, perhaps say explicitly "hey, I've had some stuff go missing, can you please scan this right now?"

Many (all?) UPS Stores now serve as USPS pick-up locations. Is there one convenient to you that you could drop off your Click-N-Ship packages? You get a UPS receipt when you drop off the package so at least you would have an acknowledgement that UPS held the package for the Postal Service.

Honestly this system of giving the packages to the mail carrier is clearly not working. Reconsider going to the post office or switching to UPS/FedEx.