This is the 3rd time in a week that I've gone to the Albany Post Office on Solano Avenue and it has either been closed (during operating hours) or the clerk tells me to come back because they're going out for lunch. Please post accurate hours of operation on the front door. Closing during operating hours and/or telling customers to come back because you need a lunch break is frustrating to patrons. Please post accurate signs so that we are all aware of the actual hours of operation. read more

Came here after Labor day weekend to pick up a package from the counter. People started lining up way before 9 (when they were supposed to open) and the line was long. 9:10 am, nothing happened, the doors were still locked. Some mailman from the truck in the garage was asked by one of us to open the main door, and he told the rest of us, the person who was supposed to open the counter would not arrive for at least another 20 minutes. This tells you what it is like to be a federal employee, way to go USPS. I wish i could give it a 0 star. read more

The young mail carrier just threw the package over to the front door from opposite side of the side walk. Called the post office number and of course there is no answer. read more

I find it hard to be a big fan of any post-office, as I feel like if I'm there I've already made some kind of mistake in my life. But looking at it from a less biased perspective, this branch really is about as good as it gets in most ways... The staff are for the most part very friendly (which is a LOT harder than you might think in that line of work), with the exception of one woman who is an incredible stickler for the tiniest details. I try to time my position in line to avoid her if she is at the desk, and if I miscalculate, I either hope everything is perfectly correct, or I go up the street to Berkeley, with only some minutes of my life lost. The lines move at a pace determined by the customers, so it can be fast or take aeons, and there's nothing the staff can really do about it, so I don't blame the office for this. This post office is located in a central location, a couple blocks up from San Pablo, on Solano, and it has ample parking either in the back, or on the adjacent street, which is for me a huge bonus in any business. It also features the large open desk that allows you to simply dump packages of virtually any size, if you've already paid postage, without any need to wait in line. So if you're the prepared type you can breeze in and out and be on with your life, hurray! I would say the only real complaint I have with this post office, is that heaven forbid you need any extra tape or have to write something down anywhere, as there are no tape dispensers, and the 3 or 4 pens littered about the place have never once worked for me in the YEARS I have been going there (I suspect they have been the same pens the entire time). So again, come prepared to this post office if you want to have a pleasant experience, because if you are not, it can quickly turn into a very bad experience. read more

I'm not a regular here, but when the lines are long - they are LONG! The staff are friendly, but I don't understand why they don't add coverage during peak times? Only one staff member when the line curls around outside? Lunch time is always packed, I would avoid coming at that hour. read more

The clerks @ this location have some of the rudest, arrogant, lazy attitudes I have ever encountered at a Post Office. It is a toss up between how bad of customer service you will receive from the Albany or NorthBK (top of Solano). Had a really bad experience 3 yrs ago renewing my PO BOX.Didn't go back inside the clerk area for over a year. Looks like their craptastic attitudes are back in full force. One of the male clerks has the worst smart ass attitude when you confront them with different information than they assume they know without checking. I actually had to pull out my phone and show him on USPS website that their Post Office had my package and inquire why wasn't it delivered, when the website said it had been for 3 days! I don't pay for a po box, to have my mail delivered whenever you feel like or to be treated as if you couldn't be bothered to do your job. Your job isn't that difficult and your compensated well. Tons of people could do your job better. Get over yourselves with your poor attitudes and be grateful people still come to your location to do business. read more

This is the worst post office I have been to. Their employees are extremely rude to their customers. I went in to have 8 invitations hand canceled and the woman who helped me (or lack there of) was extremely rude and refused to do this. Hand canceling is a service that the post office has to provide to their customers, although they don't like to do it because it takes longer, they legally have to. After I informed her that I had done the same thing for 150 invites at a post office in San Francisco, she laughed and said no post office does that, which obviously isn't true because i have had it done before. She repeatedly refused to do it. I walked out with absolutely no help and extremely shocked with how rude I was treated. A note to all you brides out there: do NOT send your wedding invitations from here! read more

Went there a few days ago to mail a package. They are supposed to open at 9 am, got there around 10 and there were people lined up outside the door! Waiting in line inside is not unusual here, but the line was OUTSIDE the post office, i.e., they were not open! Waited until 10:30 but gave up and left. Can this happen at an government institution? A fellow waiting in line said this happens BECAUSE this is an government institution! read more

If I could give none I would. Last time I will be using ANY USPS ever. I will move on to UPS and Fedex from now on. They lost a box worth several 1000's $ in suits being shipped from Europe and noone can tell me where they are. That is if you have past the enormous line while one service person is there to help you. Horrible office read more

The Albany post office is a gem. The staff is excellent: very professional, they know what they're doing, they move things along quickly, and they are pleasant and courteous. I've probably been in there 60 times over the past several years and each time have come away grateful that I have such a great facility nearby. read more

Awful lines and apathetic staff. It is a depressing post office but I have a box there. In 8 years since I've been using this post office, it almost always has a long line- sometimes it is like 15 people deep with just one person working somehwat slowly. They seem to really not care. Once I arrived at 4:15, waited in line til after 5, and then finally i was done with the clerk only to find they had locked the front door and everyone in the post office was locked in! Is that even legal? It took them another 10 minutes to open the door! read more

We came on a busy Saturday morning to retrieve a package that was initially destined for home delivery. (I'll skip the long, sad story.) Standing at the service window was a long queue of frustrated, demanding customers. This could have been a train wreck, but the situation was managed brilliantly by Singh, whose job it was to maintain calm and keep things moving. We found Singh to be efficient and dedicated -- definitely worthy of a shoutout. Thank you, Singh! read more

This is my regular post office and I come here somewhat often. The staff is usually indifferent and demonstrates zero urgency no matter how long the line. I've seen them deal with frustrated customers with a practiced level of absolute apathy. When I have questions they only give half answers. Average wait time in the afternoon is 15 minutes. A few weeks ago I waited in line for 50 minutes because the employees were on vacation and left one poor woman alone to do the work of three with no replacements or backup help. The lobby offers no stamp vending or any other self serve and the supplies are perpetually under stocked. The floor is dirty and the walls haven't been repainted since the 70's. read more

Very rude and terrible customer service by old lady who work on the right register! Should've terminate.

This branch is HORRIBLE. The wait is always at least 30 minutes. They never have enough forms out so everyone gets to the front, doesn't have the right material and takes forever. There are never enough people working and the people who are working are not at all helpful or friendly. I can't describe how painful it is to use this branch. Avoid at all costs. read more

I been going to albany post office for years Front desk clerks ernel and singh are super fast Sometimes lines are longer and not enough staff. read more

I'm a regular patron - I mail this and that .... This office is perfect, thank you very much. Negative comments are by people who're trained by imperialism's media and other institutions - school, church, misguided home/community, to wrongly estimate workers in capitalism. The post office is being privatized. BART will be too, eventually. We've learned to be able to say negative things about our commons functions. Note that our commons is deprived funds and cirucumstances to be able to function well at all times. It's our job to reclaim the commons so we can control production - socialism, you know. Workers control production. The democracy then in our favor, not our Owners, as it is now. Our Owners use! democracy to bend the system toward THem!. We've become hating/hateful of the wrong people, of ourselves, angry, fkd over by our Owners divide and conquer devices. normaha@pacbell.net www.peaceandfreedom.org read more

This place is pretty OK. years ago they had a crabby clerk but I haven't seen him in a while. The real problem can be the customers, as someone else suggested. If you're unlucky enough to be there when someone with some weird problem is ahead of you-- well, I hope you brought a long book. Then there are the people who don't fill out forms ahead of time, or want to pay in pennies or something. Of course I've never seen a postal clerk move very fast at any branch anywhere. Wait -- I know what happened to the crabby guy-- I turned into him. read more

Holy Shit! Holy Shit! Too many old people in Albany!! They are very slow and hard of hearing and generally don't know what the hell they are doing. There's only one person behind the counter to service this Baby Boomer infested town that still hasn't found out about e-mail. God awful lines take forever to move. A line of 5 people can become 10 in minutes because of the aging menace popping up everywhere. There should be a stamp vending machine and a separate line for people under 50 years old. The USPS needs to hire young college students that have their shit together. The lines at Starbucks move fast why can't a glorified mailbox move fast? Next time I'm going I'm just going to the front of the line because I don't have time to watch old people do everything in slow motion and still complain that the service is slow when it's themselves that are causing the trouble. Old people need to hurry up and die. The eagle is false advertising, should be a snail logo on their trucks. read more

I'm not an expert. I can say that if you have anything over a pound you have to bring it to the counter and that at 4:30 there's a line, but not out the door (on a Tuesday). My boxes already had paid labels on them so I quickly interrupted someone at the counter to ask if I could just leave them and I could. So yay! I wasn't in there for more than a minute. Also, I was lucky enough to find a parking space, but it's on Solano, so there aren't many to choose from. There might be days where you have to park in the neighborhood nearby. read more

I've had PO boxes in more than 10 different Post Offices around the country. This has been the worst by orders of magnitude. The customer service is widely variable but sometimes they seem to go out of their way to make life miserable for customers. If it was always with one person then I could pass it off as being one bad apple but more than one person there has behaved in inexplicably abhorrent ways. I finally left because geographical convenience could not adequately compensate for the "service" received there. read more

A few months ago our route got a new carrier and our mail is being regularly delivered by 10 AM. I'm soooo grateful for the change. And I'm also realizing how grateful I am that the post office clerks here in Albany are not anything like the rude ones up the street at the Landscape station. Unfortunately, because those shrews have run off all of their customers, the lines tend to be pretty long here. But I guess I'd rather wait in line than ever step foot again in the Landscape station at the top of the street. read more

Worst post office I have ever dealt with. Don't ever sign up for redelivery when you need something to be on time. When I attempted to call to find out where my package was, the guy said he'd find out and call me back. 5pm on a Friday and no call. Tried to call them around 4:50 and no one would take my call. Great. Glad the package will be sitting outside my apartment for the next week while I'm on vacation. Thanks for nothing. read more

I live in North Berkeley but take the 5 extra minutes to come down Solano Ave to use this post office because I like it better than the North Berkeley branches. Here's what I love about this post office: They're open Saturdays until 3pm, which helps me, as I often have things to ship on Saturdays. Even though they are located on busy Solano Ave and Cornell St, even if I'm zooming down there in a hurry at 5 mins to 5 or 3 mins to 3, I can always park easily, for free, either right in front, right around the corner near the mailboxes, or in their small parking lot. Parking has never been an issue in the 10 or so years I've been coming here. The staff are consistently calm, efficient, helpful, knowledgeable, and friendly, even with a long line snaking out into the vestibule, they never seem to lose their cool, even with the occasional irate customer -- very cool. (I wish I could say the same about the Berkeley Post Office branch staff!) I will say that maybe because they are so efficient here, they seem to be a popular Post Office destination, and as a result often have a long line waiting; this isn't unusual for Post Offices; what's important is how fast the line moves, and the attitude and competency of the staff. I've often been surprised, when I walk in and see 20 or 30 people ahead of me in line and only 2 clerks working (often there are three), I worry about how long the wait will be. To be honest sometimes it is a tad long, if there are people who hold up the line for 20 minutes with some bafflingly complex shipping issue, but more often than not the line moves surprisingly swiftly. One thing seems very odd to me though, and I often wish it would change about this post office: The vestibule where the private mailboxes are is a HUGE part of this small building, and there are just two tables there, a trash & recycle bin, and the long wall of mailboxes. It seems like a gross waste of space, and I often wonder why they made that change. Seems they could use at least a third of that space for self-service shipping, or just expand the counter service. read more

I've asked for a redelivery from them 3 times from which I've never gotten a reply. I've called them multiple times and at this point, I'm sure they're actively ignoring them to avoid extra work. This is absolutely the worst post office read more

I have had to file three missing mail reports so far this year. Some of the mail that has gone missing contains important personal information so I am hoping it gets recovered. My packages are constantly getting left at the wrong door or left out on the street. I hope they get more staff so that they have an opportunity to familiarize themselves with their routes. The several times that I've spoken to the postal delivery people, they seemed nice enough but seemed to all say that my route was not their regular route-which may be a contributing factor in all of this lost mail. I'm hoping that this post office can do better. read more

This office only service RETAIL WINDOWS, PO BOXES and DELIVERY PICK UPS for 94706-94708....carriers doesnt work at this office! if you have problems regarding your deliveries, vacation hold mail and forwarding of your mail at this zip codes (94706-94708) you have to call your delivery/carrier station which is located at 8th st in Berkeley at (510) 649-3135/3143.. If theres a long line here at this station NUMBER 1 reason because half of the people in the line are not ready to mail their things sometimes their forms not filled out yet or their boxes not even addressed or taped up...rule of thumb! if your not ready to mail your stuffs dont get in line! Thats why they put all their shipping supplies and forms in the lobby to use... Every forms are labeled, if you want to send it as Certified it says on the form Certified or Insured it says Insured on the forms..still most of the time people ask the clerks where this forms at ..so, some of you out there all you have to do just READ....they even ask how much small, medium or large flat rate boxes are...right there! it is clearly says also how much... come on people just READ! READ! READ! we're not that dumb that they (clerks) have to point every single things to us and admit to yourself this is not your first time mailing something at the post office.. Why we are all complaining the line/wait is too long...we, ourselves also the cause creating that line, did we ask ourselves how can we help them to speed up the line/process??? Think of this! 1.) have all our forms filled out properly and ready in advance 2.) boxes labeled and taped up ready to be ship 3.) complains with regards to deliveries, forwarding, held mail dont ask that to retail window here because they have nothing to do with it...but if you do make it short they can only relay your complains to the right delivery stations normally taking your names, address, phone numbers and reason for your complains then its up to delivery unit to follow up with you...alot of people mistakenly think Albany Post Office is their delivery station which is NOT! our mail, our deliveries doesnt come from this office.. it comes from 8th st in Berkeley! Albany PO only use by delivery unit to pickup our packages/letters here if we received an attempted delivery notice from our carriers or our vacation hold mail if we ask for pick up on the end date of our hold... One more thing! People complaining with regards to their packages they mailed didnt get there...thats why we have tracking numbers on our receipts..clerks cant do anything also ..what they do same as we do, they go online (usps.com) and type the tracking numbers whatever we see of course theyll see the same thing...the only way to find out they have to do the search on the other end where your packages are going to... RETAIL CLERKS are there to make sure we have enough or the right postage in our mailings to get it process and to provide us whatever we want to that mailings base on what we need...but all mail are process in big facility in Oakland..if you taking BART going to the city you'll see it..the BIG building I thinked in your left side...doesnt matter where we drop it blue can mailbox outside or drop box on the side wall inside the post office...all the way to Napa or Livermore everything all goes to Oakland to get it process..no matter where we drop it that day as long we make it on the last pick up time posted in those dropboxes EVERYTHING will be POSTMARK that day! so those people stop asking if your mail will go out TODAY or will be POSTMARK today! read more

Waited 45 minutes and still didn't get into main lobby because the line was so long and moved so slowly. Only PO open after 12pon Saturday??? Now I will have to go FedEx. Never coming here again!!! read more

The Albany Post Office has serious staffing, reliability and management issues. It's better to go to the Berkeley Post Office on Solano if you can. We recently mailed two boxes to France and the Netherlands and the counter person switched the customs forms - taping the customs form for Netherlands to the France package and vice versa. Each package cost $59 to mail. A month later one of the packages was returned, never delivered, because of the mismatched addresses. The other package never arrived. In 2012, a package our French friends sent us was returned to them - with a note about 3 attempts to deliver to us in Albany. We never got a notice of attempted delivery. This past Saturday, January 18, there was a single clerk working the counter, lines out the door and boxes piled all over the counter. The counter person would leave to search for a package, be gone for 5 minutes, and anyone could have grabbed a package and walked out the door. This is serious. read more