Originally Posted by
zephyr17
I do have an issue with the disingenuous "mailing" time, since most of that time is not in the hands of USPS, but rather in their mailroom. I did some internet research and found that it is actually pre-processing (OCR scanning, etc) outsourced to Citibank. Why they are putting the blame for the inordinate "mailing" time on USPS instead of the actual culprit, their contractor, Citibank, is a matter of speculation.
It seems rather obvious blame-shifting. They're trying to make their own metrics look better by shifting it to one that they can pretend is beyond their control. A lot of people are probably falling for it, particularly given the actual USPS issues earlier in the pandemic (around voting time, but I won't get into that.)
I didn't know Citibank was handling opening/scanning mail for them. To me, that should raise some questions about letting a private corporation with a history of information security breaches handle something as sensitive as passport applications, but the use of contractors by the federal government is widespread. Either way, interesting tidbit of information, thank you!