A U.S. Postal Service inspector general audit found employees manipulated customer satisfaction surveys nationwide, contributing to inflated C360 scores while weaknesses in oversight, deterrence and management response allowed misconduct to continue.

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.

The U.S. Postal Service’s internal watchdog found widespread manipulation of customer satisfaction surveys across the country, concluding that employees created fictitious complaints, generated surveys for themselves and participated in a separate coordinated effort to artificially boost local performance scores.

The findings emerged from a Sept. 15 audit examining the integrity of the Postal Service’s Customer 360, or C360, survey program. According to the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, investigators analyzed 40.2 million customer service requests and responses from fiscal years 2023 through 2025 after USPS itself previously reported a survey-manipulation scheme to the watchdog.

Read the full report here: Customer Survey Integrity Audit Report

The inspector general found that USPS reported a 5% increase in customer satisfaction during that period and determined that the improvement was driven in part by two forms of manipulation affecting more than 124,000 of 3.8 million surveys reviewed, or approximately 3.3%.

According to a report by Just the News, the findings raise broader questions about internal accountability at an agency responsible for delivering everything from household checks and financial documents to election mail. The inspector general audit itself examined customer-survey integrity and did not allege manipulation of ballots or other mail.

“We found employees created fake issues so when they received the customer satisfaction survey at their personal email addresses, they could complete the surveys with favorable results,” the watchdog reported. “Secondly, we found a coordinated ‘booster’ effort in one area where employees improperly entered normal interactions (like daily mail delivery) as customer issues to generate surveys that were then manipulated to inflate local C360 scores.”

The first method involved employees entering nonexistent customer problems into C360 while substituting personal email addresses for customer contact information. Once the fabricated cases were closed, the system generated satisfaction surveys that the employees could complete themselves with positive ratings.

The audit found that an earlier version of the scheme had already been identified in fiscal 2024. In that case, a district-level Customer Relations manager edited customer email addresses so surveys would be sent to the manager instead of customers. The inspector general reported that the manager changed nearly 800 addresses in 11 days and completed 2,589 favorable surveys over approximately six months before resigning after being placed on administrative leave.

USPS responded to the original misconduct by adding system warnings, requiring employees to provide reasons when changing email addresses and reminding personnel about C360 integrity. The inspector general found those measures were sufficient to address that particular method, but investigators discovered that broader manipulation continued using different techniques.

One repeatedly exploited source was the agency’s “Email Us” customer-service channel.

“We found this ongoing, targeted scheme exploited several categories of service request types,” the report said. “One category that was most significantly exploited originating from ‘Email Us’ was facility service requests, which are intended to alert the Postal Service to issues with lobby appearance, wait times, mail collection, PO Boxes, retail transactions, passport services, forms/supplies, or troubles with equipment.”

Investigators also uncovered a second method involving what the report described as a regional “booster” campaign.

Rather than fabricating conventional complaints, employees improperly recorded routine customer interactions — including normal mail delivery — as service problems. Closing those newly created records triggered surveys, allowing favorable responses to increase local C360 scores.

The inspector general said that activity was concentrated in one Postal Service area, including a significant number of cases in the West Coast region, while the separate fake-issue scheme appeared nationwide.

C360 results carry consequences beyond an internal customer-service measurement.

Federal law requires USPS to submit annual information on customer satisfaction to the Postal Regulatory Commission, the independent federal agency responsible for oversight of postal rates, service and statutory compliance. The inspector general said C360 data help support that required reporting.

C360 scores also flow upward from individual employees and postal facilities into district, regional and ultimately national performance measurements. The audit found that those metrics are used in performance evaluations and form part of the National Performance Assessment, which can affect salary increases and bonuses for managers and executives.

Investigators concluded that pressure surrounding those scores contributed to the misconduct.

The watchdog said managers created “excessive pressure to raise customer satisfaction scores” and found that the Postal Service failed to adequately address why workers continued trying to manipulate the results.

“Although management was aware of these schemes, it did not address the underlying culture driving score manipulation,” the inspector general said. “Some employees faced pressure, at times, from supervisors who benefited from the misconduct.”

“Additionally, we found weaknesses in policy, deterrence measures, and processes that allowed this misconduct to persist. Without corrective action, the integrity of C360 reporting will remain compromised, potentially exposing the Postal Service to fines… from uncorrected, inaccurate reporting,” it added.

The inspector general ultimately issued six recommendations intended to address both the manipulation and the management environment surrounding C360.

The watchdog recommended that USPS instruct area vice presidents and district managers not to impose artificial or unrealistic performance goals; reevaluate its C360 scoring system and consider fraud or quality indicators; monitor future “booster” activity; establish rules allowing repeat offenders to have C360 access temporarily or permanently suspended; create a centralized process for documenting and escalating suspected misconduct; and recalculate the effects of suspected fraudulent surveys on fiscal 2023, 2024 and 2025 C360 scores before reporting updated figures to the Postal Regulatory Commission.

Postal Service management disputed the inspector general’s overall conclusions and rejected all six recommendations.

Management acknowledged questionable survey activity but argued that the inspector general may have “overstated the severity of this issue.” USPS also challenged the watchdog’s methodology, saying it could not substantiate or reproduce all of the surveys the inspector general classified as high risk.

The inspector general stood by its findings, pointing in part to USPS’s own subsequent examination of WestPac-area surveys. According to the watchdog, the Postal Service used similar analytical filters during the first two quarters of fiscal 2026 and identified 126 employees connected to surveys it considered likely fraudulent; 116 of those employees had previously been flagged by the inspector general.

The watchdog said that finding supported its methodology and demonstrated that previous training and corrective measures had not been sufficient to stop the problem.

“We consider management’s comments unresponsive to recommendations 1 through 6 and will pursue the disagreements through the audit resolution process,” the IG said.

The dispute now moves through that formal process, with the inspector general maintaining that the recommendations should remain open until adequate corrective measures are completed.

The survey controversy comes as USPS continues confronting longstanding financial challenges.

A separate inspector general review of the Postal Service’s finances found that fiscal 2006 was the last year in which USPS recorded a profit and traced the agency’s subsequent financial problems to declining First-Class Mail volume, legislative obligations and other operational pressures.

“The Postal Service mitigated 18 years of recorded net losses by maximizing its debt limit, suspending some retiree payments, postponing infrastructure maintenance, and freezing capital spending,” the watchdog stated.

The new audit adds a separate integrity issue to those longstanding challenges: whether customer satisfaction figures submitted to regulators and incorporated into internal performance measurements accurately reflected customers’ experiences.

For the inspector general, the central concern was not merely that individual workers manipulated surveys but that weaknesses in USPS policies, management practices and disciplinary mechanisms allowed the conduct to continue after the agency had already discovered an earlier version of the scheme.

Until those weaknesses are addressed, the watchdog said, the accuracy of C360 reporting remains at risk.

Original article