Time to dissolve the postal service

[Bam]

In the last 18 months they have lost 4 of my packages!

2 were delivered to the wrong address, their tracking info confirmed this. The other 2 vanished while in transit between distribution hubs never to have been seen again. USPS claim system is a nightmare, it took 3 months to get reimbursed. And everytime they denied the claims twice before finally getting them paid, like it is policy!

And over the last 6 months more than half of my packages have arrived several days late despite paying for express or priority,

I like how hey keep jacking up postal rates to shore up their own pensions, but service keeps getting worse.

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[CamoDeafie]

Increased demand from a massive uptick of online/call orders and not enough workers, as well as Covid-19 bovine excrement and restrictions..... and yes it is policy for them to categorically deny claims even if the claimant purchased insurance. To be fair, Amazon, UPS, Fedex, and DHL aren't much better.

 

[TTSX]

Increased demand from a massive uptick of online/call orders and not enough workers, as well as Covid-19 bovine excrement and restrictions..... and yes it is policy for them to categorically deny claims even if the claimant purchased insurance. To be fair, Amazon, UPS, Fedex, and DHL aren't much better.

Amazon seems pretty good to me. Had a 1" impact wrench stolen off my porch and was reimbursed in full amount almost immediately. That's not a small ticket item

 

[Bam]

I haven't lost a single package from Fedex or UPS.

Lately I have been receiving my neighbors mail.

 

[Legion489]

Hmmm... where to start. A guy at my shooting club had a father was a carrier (of what he never said), but possibly postal. The stories he would tell of the things that went on would curl your hair and turn it white. Rifling the packages for anything valuable, throwing mail in garbage cans if they weren't happy (say the poor sod didn't give them a bottle of the GOOD hooch or a big enough Christmas ham), idiot carriers getting drunk and just driving around throwing mail out the windows (of course the other "carriers" went and picked it so the sheeple wouldn't find out, what they did with it no one knows, can you say "dumpster"?), etc., etc.

As to postal "workers", I have heard of this, but don't know if I have actually seen one, employees? Yes. Workers? No. The winners at the PO counter are barely moving on a good day and one is a total loss! Looking him in the eyes is like staring in the void, endless nothing, and vacuum. Of course the PO always has been a gov't dumping ground and it is a miracle ANY mails gets delivered at all. One guy I deal with ALWAYS uses 3 day priority mail, when I asked why he said "Free postage! NOTHING is ever delivered in three days, period! There is no need to worry about size or weight, and the buyer is happy it is sent by priority! When (if) they get it five days later, you just go to the PO and get the money back! Never had to pay postage in years!"

FedEx, UPS, etc., are not a whole lot better and I have some horror stories about them too! Girlfriend worked for UPS until she couldn't handle the stupidity, garbage, idiocy and general jackassery there.

Don't get me started on lost, destroyed, sent to the wrong address, put in the wrong box, etc., etc., etc. idiocy!

 

[DeanfromOregon]

I bought a S&W 986 revolver. half the box was literally eaten, chewed up, shredded. The pistol looked OK, but the front sight would not stay on, barrel is bent.

I am so lucky he insured it.

Deciding on whether I want the cash or to wait a little bit for a new pistol.

 

[Alexx1401]

As mentioned there has been a many fold increase in buying stuff sent to home. I have been shopping this way since before it became a big thing. Of all the carriers it's still FedEx I cringe when I see the tracking. Something happened with them a decade or better back. They use to be the gold standard. Don't know what the hell happened to them. As for the USPS you can forget about it going anywhere. They have so much voting clout now that it's just not going to ever happen.
The only thing to do is only pay with a credit card. If stuff is lost you get your money back. The big guys in online sales are great about taking stuff back if it shows up weeks after ordering instead of days. Been a few times I ordered something, it gets lost. I order another, that one comes. Weeks later the first one will show and I just give it back to them. Some times if it's something I like I have even kept both. For me still beats driving from store to store and dealing with the "help"

 

[Ruger Rich]

I recently ordered a 20" barrel from Brownell's for an AR10. It was sent FedEx and I selected the non-expedited shipping.
Brownell's sent me the tracking #. So about the 3rd day I began checking. On the 4th day it made it to Baker City, OR.
I had no idea there was a FedEx depot there. It sat there each day I looked with the delivery date marked "N/A'. Now
I'm thinking, oh yeah, a long skinny box with some weight and from a Brownell's, somebody snitched it. So on the 17th
day I sent Brownell's an E-mail and also called their claim dept. It showed up the following day.

 

[CountryGent]

The postal service has become nightmarishly bad here and I'm burning up way too much time on their gross incompetence. Extremely slow ship times, lost packages, packages lost then found but show up practically destroyed, expensive merchandise lunched, Soviet-style lines at the rural PO, hold times on their 800 number measured in the hours, and the list goes on and on.

Though it can be problematic in its own ways, and costs more, I've started sending more via UPS. Though the cost isn't bad compared to Express Mail which is little more than a joke now — advertised as "Fastest delivery times: overnight — 2 days with a money-back guarantee", but I'm finding times no where near that. The last Express Mail I sent was shipped on 2/17 and it got there 2/26; so they narrowly beat Pony Express times, but most certainly not overnight to two days. No word yet from the recipient if what arrived is still intact and I plan to call him tomorrow morning. (Oh and when I tried to file for a refund, I get a red error that reads simply "We have encountered an error. Please try again." over and over again, then finally an even more unhelpful message.*)

There is a pandemic, increased demand, and winter weather; I get it, it ain't easy. But damn near every organization is addressing the challenges. I seem to recall the postal services motto is "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." Time for them to get on the stick.

*

 

[clearconscience]

It's been time for a decade. They provide absolute crap service, never maintain, secure, or repair (properly) their boxes and waste money as fast as the House on "covid" relief

 

[gmerkt]

My own experience. In the past 15 years, I've shipped somewhere around 5,000 parcels. 99.8% through the PO. In that experience, never had one truly lost that I know of. Meaning, if one went missing, I wasn't made aware of it. I've filed two claims against the PO for insurance, both within the past year, both for damage. In both cases, I filed claims online, they were resolved in my favor within a week or two.

I've had two deliveries where the addressee initially said they didn't get the package. Only to find out they didn't see the keys that had been placed in their receptacle for a parcel locker in their cluster box.

I don't find postal employees, on the whole, any better or worse than most others in service type business. Some are better than others. I encounter surly and incompetent retail employees at business of all kinds more often than I care to.

During the Covid virus thing, service times have sometimes been drawn out. I use Prioity Mail quite a bit. This service in particular has been hit with delays. A big part of the problem is that Priority Mail is mostly shipped by commercial air. Much of which involves belly cargo in previously scheduled passenger planes. Commercial air transportation as we know has been greatly curtailed during the Covid thing. Sometimes Priority Mail sits on the ground, waiting for space on an aircraft.

Whatever method of shipping, I believe in good packaging, lots of tape, and always insurance.

 

[bigbearbear]

I'm very lucky where I am because the regular postal worker who works on my route is very on the ball. Whenever there's a package to be delivered, he doesn't just leave it on my driveway. He always take the package, walks up 2 flights of stairs to the 2nd floor and leave the package at my front door so that it doesn't get stolen because it is not visible from the street, and also doesn't get wet because my doorway is covered.

I hope he has a long career at the USPS.

 

[Alexx1401]

I'm very lucky where I am because the regular postal worker who works on my route is very on the ball. Whenever there's a package to be delivered, he doesn't just leave it on my driveway. He always take the package, walks up 2 flights of stairs to the 2nd floor and leave the package at my front door so that it doesn't get stolen because it is not visible from the street, and also doesn't get wet because my doorway is covered.

I hope he has a long career at the USPS.

I do not know if this is nation wide. Here many years ago we started having MAJOR problems at my house with USPS. For almost a couple decades we had the same carrier. She got to know the names of the pets. She was suddenly gone. Guessing retired. New people all the time. Now and then screw ups were we would have to exchange mail with someone next to us. Then packages started to not show up. Found out they were going to a house on the next street over. Same address, totally different name. Wife took to going to the house when tracking showed something delivered and we never saw it. By now this house was empty, no one lived there. So one day she catches up with the carrier who had just left 2 packages for us at that house. Now this same guy for some reason could get our mail to us
Wife stops to tell him, has packages in her hand. He speaks very little English, very heavy accent. Kept telling my Wife everyone was angry with him and it was not his fault
So I found on online portal to complain. Long involved deal to fill out but I did it every time this happened. After a while the guy was no longer seen and mail went back to normally getting here. I then found the USPS was hiring Temp contractors. That this is who this guy was. Turned out I worked with his Wife
The USPS did not fire him, they just put him on a different route because so many complaints were coming in. So I guess they move him around as people complain. So it made me wonder. How many of these people are they hiring now?

 

[NW Backpacker]

I've had two deliveries where the addressee initially said they didn't get the package. Only to find out they didn't see the keys that had been placed in their receptacle for a parcel locker in their cluster box.

Those parcel lockers are a huge plus for the USPS. Your package is safer in that locker than on your porch. Recently I have received packages from UPS in the USPS parcel locker - apparently they are working together - the shipping labels had a UPS tracking number and a USPS tracking number.

 

[Alexx1401]

"Those parcel lockers are a huge plus for the USPS. Your package is safer in that locker than on your porch. Recently I have received packages from UPS in the USPS parcel locker - apparently they are working together - the shipping labels had a UPS tracking number and a USPS tracking number. "

Those things are a great idea for people who are not home during the day to keep scum from stealing the stuff. That I am lucky I do not have to deal with as I am home days. I did just have another problem with the damn USPS though. Ordered another pair of glasses. They shipped 2/14. On 2/16 they had gotten to Vancouver WA and there they sat. I finally contacted the place that makes them. Said I could have walked there by now and got them They said they would put a tracer on them to try to jog the package. Asked I wait a little longer to just get a refund. Today the package finally moved and is now here. So will see if it shows up tomorrow. So where is sat for a couple weeks who the hell knows. If they can at least get my stuff too me I can make sure it's not stolen
Now last great ammo panic I had .22 ammo coming weekly. A LOT of the deliveries were from a joint that used FedEx. I can't remember how many damn times I had to chase those packages down. I would get the text that the stuff was delivered. Nothing on porch. Rewind the camera's out front. would see the truck stopping at some other house on my street. Walk down and there would be my stuff. Hey at least they got it to the correct street

 

[Bam]

Another day and USPS will have officially lost my 5th package! 3 in the last 6 months. An FFL item that is very hard to find.

 

[revjen45]

Incompetence/apathy by the USPS is a matter of real concern to me. I get meds through the mail so misdelivered packages can be a particularly sensitive matter.
What really frosted me was when they lost a prescription of the sort that draws the Eye of Sauron and some degree of suspicion when you say you didn't get it.

 

[gmerkt]

the shipping labels had a UPS tracking number and a USPS tracking number.

This package with two tracking numbers, probably was entered with a UPS load, then drop shipped at your USPS delivery office for the "last mile." There is a big discount in this for shippers.

 

[AK0perator47]

Does this mean that we should dissolve Comcast and other tv providers because they can't give refunds even though their service is always out? Maybe we should dissolve cellphone providers every time we have an issue with them? Oh yeah I say we dissolve any and all businesses that have servers that house the internet because they have been hacked on a regular basis and are the cause of the majority of stolen identities!

forget the fact that all of these places employ over 300,000 people but hey as long as we can complain on a forum about this one did this and so and so did that. I mean what difference does it make even though we already have the highest unemployment rates! Done with this thread

 

[made in china]

Oftentimes, USPS frustrates the ever-living piss out of me.
Sometimes it's the tracking errors, the foul weather, mis-routing, but often it's our own mail delivery person making mistakes.
However, to be fair, I'd be the WORST mail person ever! Watching him organize the mail in our dozens of cubbies on the community mail boxes, I'd screw up every time.