Originally Posted by Moderator2

I hope you were not unintentionally misled by the USPS. Everything I see is the "Acceptance Fee" by statute is only intended to cover the USPS' role in validating the applicant is who they claim to be (on behalf of the State Department). The clerk may not have been technically wrong, and the receiving post office may bulk ship all the passport applications regularly to the State Department Processing Center via Priority Mail. But that of course would not give you a unique tracker.