USPS is terrible.

You could try an 'intercept' for ~$17 plus postage.
It didn't work for me, ended up going to the original addressee. Buyer has the item, money refunded and won't respond to request to return it. The PO did delete the $17 charge. A LOT of miles on that package in 30+ days

AugieTN said:

Maybe the issues I have ran into are local issues for my area (Chicago Suburbs) Here's what I have run into:

1. I'm retired and the wife and I go away for a week or two. Before leaving I fill out a hold mail card at the post office. I've ran into, the mail was delivered, partially delivered and never stopped, over loaded my mail box so the top was opened, it rained and ruined all the mail. I go to mentioned the issue at the post office and asked for a supervisor. The woman said there is no supervisor and if i had a complaint, she gave me a 800 number.

2. I live at the end of a long U shaped street, I can always see the postman coming. For the last few years, there are days when the postman never comes. I know I read the new Postmaster wanted the post office to stop overtime and become profitable. So is this why no mailman shows up on some days? They're short handed, so no mail delivery?

3. I went to the office today at 4pm. The line was out the door. I peaked inside and there are spots for 5 or 6 cashiers, There was only one cashier.

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Pretty sure they don't deliver our mail every day, and haven't for years. It seems they wait till there is enough to make it worthwhile.

They took away our little regional center awhile back. which means mailing anything to our city goes through minnesota.

That said, our little post office tries the best they can and there are few options for delivery service unless willing to drive 25 miles.

Fortunately my health clinic no longer uses them for mailing my prescriptions.

zeke said:

Pretty sure they don't deliver our mail every day, and haven't for years. It seems they wait till there is enough to make it worthwhile.

They took away our little regional center awhile back. which means mailing anything to our city goes through minnesota.

That said, our little post office tries the best they can and there are few options for delivery service unless willing to drive 25 miles.

Fortunately my health clinic no longer uses them for mailing my prescriptions.

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Nobody notices Wisconsin anyway-ought to re-name it East Minnesota

CAJUNLAWYER said:

Nobody notices Wisconsin anyway-ought to re-name it East Minnesota

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We are above the fly over zone, but blue plate specials invade every weekend during nice weather. When bored, can hop on the main road through town and play "bumper bingo". But i am easily entertained

I guess I'm fortunate. My gunsmith in Wyoming shipped my gun back to me on Tuesday, and tracking showed I could expect it today. Checked tracking and it's out for delivery.

I paid a cc bill electronically through my bank on Nov. 20th. It was due Dec 3rd. The check was cashed Dec 12th. I got a late fee because the bank mails the electronic check rather than a ach payment. I can't believe even paying the ach charge to a non family partner would be cheaper than snail mail.

My local postmaster let me in on how their process works a few years ago when something went missing.

When you drop off the package it's scanned "in" to the post office. The PO then scans it "in" to a container, and that container number is now associated with your package, and vise-versa. So all the intermediate stops you see in the tracking are NOT your package getting scanned again, it's the container that is getting scanned only.

The problem comes in when the container is emptied somewhere - all the associated package tracking numbers should get released from the container number. Now, if your package is small, it might still be in the container when it's refilled with other packages, and goes on a wild ride around the country to wherever that container is headed. That's why the tracking goes silent for a spell, then suddenly your package pops up out of the blue in some random location.

That's why they don't want to hear you complaining for three weeks. They haven't lost it, they just don't know where it is... temporarily. It IS somewhere, and it'll pop back up as soon as some post office or distro center scans it in and says, "What's this doing here?" then tosses it in the outbound container.

Mainsail said:

My local postmaster let me in on how their process works a few years ago when something went missing.

When you drop off the package it's scanned "in" to the post office. The PO then scans it "in" to a container, and that container number is now associated with your package, and vise-versa. So all the intermediate stops you see in the tracking are NOT your package getting scanned again, it's the container that is getting scanned only.

The problem comes in when the container is emptied somewhere - all the associated package tracking numbers should get released from the container number. Now, if your package is small, it might still be in the container when it's refilled with other packages, and goes on a wild ride around the country to wherever that container is headed. That's why the tracking goes silent for a spell, then suddenly your package pops up out of the blue in some random location.

That's why they don't want to hear you complaining for three weeks. They haven't lost it, they just don't know where it is... temporarily. It IS somewhere, and it'll pop back up as soon as some post office or distro center scans it in and says, "What's this doing here?" then tosses it in the outbound container.

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Sounds about right ....
However, this has been happening a lot more often

Every thing I have sent priority mail with USPS has taken forever or gotten lost. I started sending stuff regular post and all has arrived in 2 - 3 days. Tried UPS with fast stuff. Lost 2 packages right off. I'll stick with USPS regular. My LGS ships everything that way.

If it was sent via "priority mail", file an insurance claim and see how fast it gets to you then.
100 in insurance is included, and if you insured for full value, even better.

Am I the only person that doesn't complain about the USPS? I have no reason to. Over the past 20+ years I have shipped/received over 30,000 pkgs. Exactly 1 was never received by the buyer. Exactly 1 was not received by me. Exactly 1 was damaged and the insurance paid. Sure a few took a grand tour but they did arrive.
What I have found interesting, shipping from here in Iowa, delivery to California is the fastest. 3 priority pkgs mailed the same day, 2 days to LA area, 3 days to southern Missouri, 3-4 days to eastern states.

zeke said:

We are above the fly over zone, but blue plate specials invade every weekend during nice weather. When bored, can hop on the main road through town and play "bumper bingo". But i am easily entertained

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Friday night fish fries!

pawngal said:

Am I the only person that doesn't complain about the USPS? I have no reason to. Over the past 20+ years I have shipped/received over 30,000 pkgs. Exactly 1 was never received by the buyer. Exactly 1 was not received by me. Exactly 1 was damaged and the insurance paid. Sure a few took a grand tour but they did arrive.
What I have found interesting, shipping from here in Iowa, delivery to California is the fastest. 3 priority pkgs mailed the same day, 2 days to LA area, 3 days to southern Missouri, 3-4 days to eastern states.

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No, it's just a regular theme here

Boycott! I'm gonna deliver and retrieve my own letters and parcels myself.

That'll learn 'em.

Its time...it's long overdue...you guys need a I Hate the USPS sub forum.
I ordered something last weekend. USPS took possession of it in Augusta, GA. on Monday. Delivered today. Works for me. I have never, ever had a problem with the USPS, and I don't think I'm alone with that.

When one considers the volume of packages, envelopes, and other stuff going through the USPS, even a tiny error rate will create problems. I avoid home delivery for safety reasons, and we check the PO Box a couple times a week if we are already doing stuff. Darned few problems. In fact, I think we get more reminders for stuff already picked up than any other error.

My experience with privatizing and contracting out is that most services are way worse AND more expensive.

Over the years I have sold aprox 20,000 Items. Most were sent by USPS priority mail. For certain items I used FedEx and UPS. Used to get good service by USPS priority. Now days I only ship some items by Priority. I had a valuable package sent to me from Delaware. Inured for 500 dollars. It went everywhere for a month...was in the PO in Casper Wy....where the package was reboxed with the original Priority mail label. When shipped it weighed 37 lbs. It went back to Del and it weighed approx 18 lbs. When it got to me 10days later it was in a brown box white Priority box label in my daughters handwriting. Nost of the expensive stuff was gone. Theere were 500 rounds of new 45 Schofield brass in the box.I got 7 in a bag. There were 11 bullet molds originally...I received 4. I filed an insurance claim...It was finally denied...because I had received the package the weight discrepancy did not compute. BTW 3 weeks later a fellow I know went to a gun show and found 400 pieces of new 45 Schofield brass and a new 45 2 cavity mold from a fellow at a gun show...in of all places...Casper Wy...the town where it was re-boxed. I can say what I believe...but can't prove it. I still have a package...actually a padded envelope sent to a member here...that has not been received to the best of my knowledge. I have quit selling on ebay at this season of the year...all shipping services are inundated.

Rule3 said:

Friday night fish fries!

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The fish fries are pretty common, and fish boils (usually up by the great lake) even better. But the blue plate (license plates) special mentioned was in reference to the invasion of tour pests from minnesota every nice weekend. And yes am over generalizing, but am sure they have things to say about the occasional wood tick that mistakenly wanders into minnesota.

Time for an update.
I filed a "find my package" through USPS customer service and yesterday I got an email from a customer service manager who began by apologizing for this mess. He went on to say that sometimes tracking gets jumbled and needs to be re-entered to update it and get things headed the right direction. He said he'd do this, and "keep an eye on it" to see it gets straightened out.
So I checked yesterday and again today to see what was happening. To my surprise the tracking showed "out for delivery"! Not sure how that could be since it was in Cincinnati on Friday? Looked closer and noticed it was being delivered back to the sender's home town in Ohio!
So I sent the manager a return email thanking him for getting my package moving, even if it went the wrong direction! I told him the sender will get it and take it to UPS to ship it this time, and hopefully get his USPS charges reimbursed.
So it shows "delivered" at 5:46 Eastern and he'll send it back UPS on Monday. Hopefully it didn't get damaged in 4 trips across the USA!

Skeet 028 said:

Over the years I have sold aprox 20,000 Items. Most were sent by USPS priority mail. For certain items I used FedEx and UPS. Used to get good service by USPS priority. Now days I only ship some items by Priority. I had a valuable package sent to me from Delaware. Inured for 500 dollars. It went everywhere for a month...was in the PO in Casper Wy....where the package was reboxed with the original Priority mail label. When shipped it weighed 37 lbs. It went back to Del and it weighed approx 18 lbs. When it got to me 10days later it was in a brown box white Priority box label in my daughters handwriting. Nost of the expensive stuff was gone. Theere were 500 rounds of new 45 Schofield brass in the box.I got 7 in a bag. There were 11 bullet molds originally...I received 4. I filed an insurance claim...It was finally denied...because I had received the package the weight discrepancy did not compute. BTW 3 weeks later a fellow I know went to a gun show and found 400 pieces of new 45 Schofield brass and a new 45 2 cavity mold from a fellow at a gun show...in of all places...Casper Wy...the town where it was re-boxed. I can say what I believe...but can't prove it. I still have a package...actually a padded envelope sent to a member here...that has not been received to the best of my knowledge. I have quit selling on ebay at this season of the year...all shipping services are inundated.

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I've had two USPS packages lost, and one returned to me a full year later, after insurance was paid for it!
I also had a nice little Marlin Ballard #3 .22RF stolen after it got to my home distribution center, but never showed arriving anywhere after that! It was headed from Oregon to Montana. USPS gave me so much grief trying to get the insurance paid that I finally contacted my congressman's office and suddenly USPS decided to pay the claim. But not before denying it once again, and my congressman's office had to contact them again to make them pay off.
I've also had one old 1894 Marlin stolen that I bought from a Texas seller, but fortunately he had to deal with UPS to get paid, and sent my money right back.
Had two rifles damaged at the same time by FedEx when I was doing a gun trade of two for one engraved Ballard. The two I sent I built wooden packing crates for, and padded them inside the crates! The guy got them and said both rifles were hanging out the ends of the crates, and only thing that saved them was the extra packing. But one had a cracked stock, and bent tangs. I got it back and fixed it, and sent it again with FedEx paying for the 2nd shipping. The crates also had black boot prints on them where someone stepped on the crates, or jumped on them intentionally breaking them.
I wont ever use USPS, or FedEx again. I'm down to just UPS, and hope they don't mess up for me! Having a nice Ballard restored now, and the gunsmith says UPS doesn't ship from his tiny town, so he's sending it back USPS when he's done! I pray it wont suffer the same fate as this last package did! It's a 13 hour drive to his shop and I'm almost considering a mini vacation to avoid losing this rifle!