United was not required to pay the victim’s damages because the airline agreed to a “global settlement” of its civil and criminal liability, the Justice Department said.
What United did: From 2012 to 2015, United submitted false delivery scan data, which it owed to the USPS as part of its contract, both when the airline took possession of the mail receptacles and when they delivered them. United was sending automated delivery scans “based on desired delivery times”, not actual collection or delivery time.
“Through this data automation scheme, United secured millions of dollars in USPS payments to which United was not entitled under the [International Commercial Air] contracts, ”said the Justice Department.
United admitted to concealing problems related to the digitization and movement of mail, for which it would have been penalized had it been revealed.
United employees “knew that the data transmitted was manufactured” and “that the transmission of false data violated the terms of the ICAIR contracts.
The fraud occurred at a time of worsening the crisis for the USPS, which lost $ 69 billion from 2007 to 2018.
What watch dogs say: Acting Deputy Attorney General Nicholas McQuaid said that United “defrauded the United States postal service by providing false information about parcel delivery for years and accepting millions of dollars in payments to which the company was not entitled”.
The Director of the Office of the Inspector General of the United States Post Office, Steven Stuller, noted that the USPS “hires commercial airlines for the protection and timely delivery of United States mail to foreign posts, including mail sent to our soldiers deployed to bases. foreign operating “