USPS strikes again!

[Nocturnal Stumblebutt]

I finally got the #1 shell plate and pins to set my Dillon 550b up for 45 Auto. Today I got an email notification that it had been delivered and was in/at the mailbox. I get home and the mailbox is empty, there is also nothing on the front porch. I call the post office and it isn't there either. Oh yeah, and my wife was home all day and said the mailman never came.

Best case scenario it got delivered to an honest neighbor. Outside of that, I doubt I will ever see it.

I normally prefer USPS but first class mail (not my shipping choice) is getting increasingly unreliable.

[KenH]

Considering the millions of pieces of mail they handle, the USPS really has a good record. If you wish to really get frustrated with mail service, try some of those 3rd world countries.... been there, I'll stay here.

[Nocturnal Stumblebutt]

Oh I agree that they USPS is generally good, and Priority Mail is spectacular, I just have a problem with first class mail, as it gets used less and less it has gotten less reliable.

[rockshooter]

Well, last week Midway sent me a priority 2-day mail package- it just went to Idaho via Anchorage, AK. When it arrived here it was in a big plastic bag because it was so soggy that the outer box- as well as the inner box, was melted. Not impressed.
Loren

[Tackleberry41]

The post office wonders what the problem is. Recently I mailed a package to a member here, 2 day priority mail, something you do pay extra for. Took 3 days. Probably could have saved a couple bucks and just used an envelope, took the same amount of time.

Wasn't long ago that I was waiting on a package from Midway, check tracking, says its delivered, odd since I don't have. It was delivered, to a city an hour away, the zip code was off by one digit, but there isn't even a street address close to mine, so who did they deliver it to? Took 20 minutes of yelling at the automated phone system, punching random buttons, to talk to a human...in India. They would look into it, let me know in a couple days, why don;t I just call and get another package sent. It eventually showed up at the house.

And then just yesterday, a package from Midway. Tracking says be here Monday, ok no box. No it was Monday to deliver it to my local post office. One of the UPS to USPS shipments. Funny UPS can get that box 600 mi in 2 days, the USPS takes 2 days to get it the last 15mi.

Unfortunately the USPS is alot like the VA, they have zero reason to do anything different. They know we have no other option and nobody will ever force them to do things different. So they will keep raising prices while offering worse service.

[mold maker]

Considering the millions of pieces of mail they handle, the USPS really has a good record. If you wish to really get frustrated with mail service, try some of those 3rd world countries.... been there, I'll stay here.

Those third world countries don't have a regiment of ex service preferred, well paid, able bodied, professionals.
Here, accurate, quick delivery, of both mail and packages is their job. It is a job protected by unions, and well benefited.
If car makers sent out cars with steering wheels for tires and tires for steering wheels, how long would they sell cars? Mis-delivering mail is no different. Every piece of mail has the address, OBVIOUS on the front. How hard is it to match it to it's intended delivery point, when the delivery person passes it every day?
USPS used to be the best possible, but has fallen way down in accuracy.
Unlike other industries they don't sublet delivery, to non English speaking illegals, so that isn't the problem.
In the last few years I have increasingly had to re-deliver mail in my box. I have had to go to residences with similar addresses to retrieve my miss-delivered mail.
Should the postmen not remember, how a compass works, or the order of numbers?
I'm wearing my asbestos suit. Flame away!!!!!

[Nocturnal Stumblebutt]

How hard is it to match it to it's intended delivery point, when the delivery person passes it every day?

In the last few years I have increasingly had to re-deliver mail in my box. I have had to go to residences with similar addresses to retrieve my miss-delivered mail.


Well I talked to the postmaster who talked to the carrier that delivered the package - he delivered it to 7211, my house number is 7711, honest mistake except that 7211 has been on the market and VACANT FOR WELL OVER A YEAR. It is completely overgrown and the mailbox is barely visible. You'd think he'd wonder why that house would be getting a package and would double check the address

[Bent Ramrod]

Increasingly the drill is to go through a set of pre-programmed motions, doing as little thinking as possible. One is a Freedom Fighter, you see, if one has the attitude "They may have my body enslaved for the miserable $25 (or $45 or $65) an hour that they grudgingly give me, but they will NEVER get the benefit of my fine mind!! And they'd better give me a big fat raise next quarter or I'll do even less!"

When I moved into this 25-year old house, it had been vacant for a while. I asked at the Post Office Branch which mailbox in the cluster at the end of the street was mine. They said my address did not exist. A neighbor advised me to mail something to myself at my new address, and grilled the carrier when he dropped it off. Wow,there it was, right in front of his eyes, all along! Who would have believed a house that had an address for 25 years actually had a mailbox?

Apparently, the learning process is ongoing and painful. I went to the same Branch to buy stamps and they said they couldn't sell them to me because "the Computer is down." I needed to send something via Express Overnight Instantaneous PDQ and the guy at the counter told me they couldn't guarantee it would be there the next day. I asked him why they called it "overnight" then and he hemmed and hawed and asked me if there was a big airport at a big town nearby. All the time, he had a smirk on his face that told me he knew I would get nothing but the standard monkey-motion for my money, and he loved the idea. I took my envelope back and told him I'd scan it and send it by e-mail.

I had the pages in my own envelope, pre-addressed, which, according to the poster above the counter, would have cost $14.10. He announced the charge would be $20, which is what it costs in their cardboard envelope, and gave me a label to fill out. He thoughtfully turned my envelope towards me so I could see the addresses on it to assist me in my labors. Naturally, he wasn't going to do it himself, not for $4.90, or for $20, for that matter.

When I was a kid, they had a poster at every Post Office to the effect that neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom of night would stay these couriers from their appointed rounds. Now there is a poster of various common everyday things that they are too frightened or incompetent to deliver by mail, with an additional paragraph on how it isn't just batteries or household cleaners--many other things that everybody agrees are safe "may" be too dangerous for these couriers to handle. Meanwhile, all we hear about is how the Post Office is in financial trouble. Any operation that wants lots of money for doing as little as possible should be in financial trouble.

So please spare me these tales of how billions and gazillions of letters and packages go through without a bobble. If they do, it's in spite of these deadheads and zombies, not because of them. I imagine the vast majority of drunk drivers get home from the local tavern without a catastrophe, either. It proves nothing.

[Hardcast416taylor]

Without a failure USPS will send anything I am getting from Midway to another zip code in Southern Michigan. I do get a notification that the package has been send to another zip, but every time! The beat up package eventually arrives - about 2 weeks later with all kinds of stampings and crayon scribbles on it!Robert

[jcwit]

It's amazing what a lucky little pup I am.

[dragon813gt]

Without a failure USPS will send anything I am getting from Midway to another zip code in Southern Michigan. I do get a notification that the package has been send to another zip, but every time! The beat up package eventually arrives - about 2 weeks later with all kinds of stampings and crayon scribbles on it!Robert

Pay more for UPS shipping. It's what I do. USPS final delivery is garbage. All it does is add an extra day or two. An the tracking stops when they hand it off to the USPS. As many issues I have w/ the USPS they aren't the worse for me. FedEx hasn't been able to deliver one package to me w/out delivering it to the wrong house first.

[Tackleberry41]

USPS as pointed out has few of the usual excuses, they haven't been downsized. They haven't been out sourced. Not bought out by some wal street firm who gutted them. Most of it comes down to pure laziness. I live on a small town our post office isn't even open 5 days a week. Close at 11 on Wed.

I lived in KY for a while. Had to get a new address, since it had just been property, now I know thats not the USPS doing that but somebody from the county. Took 3 months to get that address, always an excuse by the lazy county worker as to why. Finally had to call above them and basically make threats, the woman finally drove out there, punched a button on the GPS, and that was it. You would have thought I was asking for a virgin sacrifice to a volcano, vs jsut doing their job. I really doubt in a town that small it was that busy of a job.

Now that I had an address then it was time to deal with the USPS. It was rural, the last box on the road, had to drive an extra 1/2 mile to me and one other person. They are in a car, that they get paid mileage for not like they had to walk. Might be days I not get any mail, then a big bundle, they simply didn't want to bring it. My redbox would get watched and returned, just not by me, it was easier to stuff my mail in a box further up the road. Repeated complaints to the local office did nothing. Again I had to resort to going up higher, file an official complaint. Finally started getting my mail when I was supposed to, by a different carrier.

USPS operates in a vacuum. They know they don't have to change or improve, there are no other options or competition. Those who work for them know you really really have to try to get fired. They can be as rude an unhelpful as they want. When you get a situation like that well things only get worse, its like expecting the VA to get its act together.

[jcwit]

For my deliverly needs.

USPS gets a number 1, fast & secure, just about anywhere in the US, 3 days, anywhere in the world, 2 to 3 weeks depending on customs

UPS gets a # 2, much slower, waiting on a package at present, sent from Washington state, shipped 7/13, expected arrival 7/20.

FedX gets the #3 spot. Arrival date after shipping, Nobody know least of all FedX.

[Harter66]

I recently had an issue with a midway order . I guess the updated address didn't take on their end . As a result it went to a PO Box instead of the physical which resulted in it being forwarded. $9.33 to pry it from their grips. Over the counter at the PO that had fondled it a week before with both the physical address 1st and PO Box 2nd . I hate the USPS/UPS thing for several reasons but I also hate paying 2-5 bucks more for the UPS guy to stop as he drives by almost every day. The FRB is the best thing USPS has ever done for $6 I get a box anywhere in the lower 48 in 3 days for $12 I get the same thing in 6x the box up to 70# and for $4 more I can 2x the box except weight . I waited 16 days for a FedEx that went from Conway AR to Springfield Mo to Memphis TN to Savanah GA in just 6 days then it wondered down I40 to Phoenix Az in just 3 more days where it sat for 4 days (Saturday to Wednesday ) the as if fitted with a JATO pack it took just 4hr to Las Vegas and as I was checking the update to see it had scanned in Tonopah Nv 1 hr ago ,I heard the ding dong ditch drop and run at the door. What is really amazing about that is that with your foot down its an honest 1 1/2 hr from my door to anything at Tonopah and if the stars all line up just so Ive made the south side of Vegas in 4 hr (it's 300 miles pump to pump all went very well) Phoenix is 4 more . The real tragedy is that the box left Conway which touches I40 for 4 exits then went back through it a week later.......
UPS is a mix bag for me sometimes I'm creeper out be delivery speeds ,I made a Summit Racing order at 8pm Thursday night and it was on my front step at 1030 Friday morning, it's only 140 miles but the package hit 2 sorts and was delivered in 14 hr over night. I can't count the east coast origin boxes that roamed around NY looking for Fallon NV for weeks . But that was when we hand wrote all the addresses. After 10 or so I just asked that the shipper spelled out Nevada.

[bobthenailer]

I personaly have never had any issues with the USPS sending or receiving packages .
I hope I did not JINX myself.

[jcwit]

My last 2 MidWay orders earlier this month arrived at my door via USPS in 2, that's two days.

[snowwolfe]

After a couple of failed attempts to send information to a contractor for
having our house built using flat priority envelopes
I decided to try using the overnight envelope. My reasoning was if it want delivered overnight US PS promised a refund. Clerk tried to talk me out of it. I ignored her and mailed the last three overnight. Two didn't make it till the second day and I presented my receipt and was told I told you so. Buy I did receive my money back .
Call their bluff and send the package the way you want. Not the way some dim
wit clerk thinks you should.

[nicholst55]

I sometimes have a terrible time getting packages by any means. I live on a rather isolated Army installation, where we have a one-woman contract post office that the USPS has decided to close. USPS does NOT deliver to the house here. If a package is mailed with the house address, it is returned when it hits the main post office in Yuma. If UPS drops a package off at the main post office in Yuma for final delivery, it is immediately returned. If UPS does the final delivery, it's usually okay, but not always. Once our contract PO closes, we will supposedly receive any packages mailed to our PO boxes in the lockers inside the lobby (mail is actually handled by the Army), providing that they will fit! If not, it's 30+ miles each way to the main PO in town to pick them up. Want to mail a package? It's 30+ miles each way to the main PO in town, although there is a substation only 20 miles each way.

And then there are the vendors who use Google Maps (or something similar) to verify your address. I'm going round and round right now with Brownells about this. Their software insists that my street address does not exist (although they have shipped packages here before)! Their customer service will manually override 'the system' when I call and complain, but afterwards the system automatically changes it back to somewhere in town where I DO NOT live! That, and their shipping rates (even higher than Midway's!!!) have just about cost them a 35+ year customer - and they don't seem to care.