The USPS SUCKS

[Big Beat Steve]

4 hours ago, medjuck said:

IN my experience USPS is no worse than UPS or Fedex and they're a lot cheaper. 

And as we have both seen yesterday the item you sent to me arrived rather timely too. So yes - I agree with you, USPS has its snags and bugs but for overseas shipments overall they are not worse than their competitors,

[kinuta]

I've probably mentioned it previously but the USP is very expensive.

Japan post is about 75% cheaper for international packages.

[Brad]

8 hours ago, medjuck said:

So I ordered the new release of the Miles Nontet recordings from Amazon. Usually they send cds via USPS and they arrive the day of the release date which would be today.  Much to my surprise I got an e-mail from UPS saying I would get it on the 28th  via UPS.  All I could think was "what a waste of money". I usually get new cds from Amazon via USPS and  they've always arrived on the release date but what do I care at least I'll get it today.  Today I got another e-mail from UPS saying it would arrive Monday by end of day. Three days late.  USPS delivers Amazon stuff on Saturday and Sunday.   I've already got the music on other cds and what do I care about Amazon's expenses but probably because I'm old and cranky this really pisses me off. 

IN my experience USPS is no worse than UPS or Fedex and they're a lot cheaper. 

Three days doesn't seem that terrible. Maybe just a bad day? 

The one thing that does annoy me on occasion is their delivery policies. Last year we put a gate around our property because my wife got pissed that the deer were chewing up her flowers and plants and gardening is her hobby. USPS won't open the gate if a package needs a signature or won't fit into the mailbox whereas UPS has no issues coming through the gates. 

[jlhoots]

FWIW, I have a first class mail package from Dusty Groove that was shipped on Jun 24. Supposed to be delivered today. Currently in Des Moines. Unlikely to get here to New Mexico anytime soon.

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, Brad said:

 Last year we put a gate around our property because my wife got pissed that the deer were chewing up her flowers and plants and gardening is her hobby.

Here's a win-win! Make the wife happy, and get outta the house and into the great outdoors. And a freezer full of meat to last you the winter!

[Brad]

33 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Here's a win-win! Make the wife happy, and get outta the house and into the great outdoors. And a freezer full of meat to last you the winter!

No Thanks! One year we did have a deer die in our pool.  What a mess that was. 

[JSngry]

Well, yeah, a deer in a pool, not much use comes out of that. I mean, who eats clorinated meat?

[crisp]

On 02/05/2019 at 9:23 AM, crisp said:

I'm suffering my first experience of USPS.

Order placed Dec 20.

Seller agreed parcel had been lost and resent March 12. 

Item left LA March 26.

Then on April 28 I get the cryptic message "the originating post is preparing to dispatch this mail piece", which apparantly means it has just left the country!

Must be some kind of a record (although I haven't yet read the rest of this thread).

It's been sent a third time. Should have got here by now, but the tracking site says there are two packages with the same code so it can't track it any more. I have never had such abysmal service from a courier.

[aparxa]

A parcel from UK (Royal Mail) with my right address in France on it has been sent wrongly to the US and has been sitting for 10 days in ISC NEW YORK NY (USPS) ! I hope the Jazz Epistles - Verse 1 reissue is not in a warehouse over 100°F.
A very first from my cross-channel purchases!

[ghost of miles]

USPS in Bloomington, Indiana is great.  I hope to God it never gets privatized, because privatization in any sector of business almost inevitably is a disaster for customers, employees, and the institution that was privatized.  It does tend to be great for a few wealthy corporate types, however.  

[erwbol]

On 7/17/2019 at 5:29 PM, ghost of miles said:

USPS in Bloomington, Indiana is great.  I hope to God it never gets privatized, because privatization in any sector of business almost inevitably is a disaster for customers, employees, and the institution that was privatized.  It does tend to be great for a few wealthy corporate types, however.  

Truth.

[Brad]

On 7/17/2019 at 11:29 AM, ghost of miles said:

USPS in Bloomington, Indiana is great.  I hope to God it never gets privatized, because privatization in any sector of business almost inevitably is a disaster for customers, employees, and the institution that was privatized.  It does tend to be great for a few wealthy corporate types, however.  

It’s being run at a loss. That is hardly what I call great. If it can’t be run without a loss, then it should be privatized.  The post office has made some improvements but in response to what UPS and FedEx are doing. That’s called competition.  I don’t understand the last part of your statement, at least as it applies to the post office. 

[Big Beat Steve]

On 17.7.2019 at 3:18 PM, aparxa said:

A parcel from UK (Royal Mail) with my right address in France on it has been sent wrongly to the US

Troy, MI, instead of Troyes??

But I'll tell you - this can happen almost anywhere:

Years ago I had TWO such incidents where the culprit clearly was La Poste in France:

My post code starts with the number "70", and you can put the "D" for Germany in front of the post code (although this is not mandatory as long as the country is clearly indicated too).

Now there were two letters from France that arrived here with CONSIDERABLE delays (and one of them therefore too late for me to do anything with it as it contained entry tickets for a show at a particular date that of course had passed by the time I received the letter containing the tickets). Both had been returned/delayed with a mark of "non-existing address" on the back (and did not arrive until a second try was made), In one case there was a post office stamp of Vésoul (Haute Saône - 70) next to that "non-existing address mark" on the back, and the other letter carried a post office stamp from somewhere in the departement of Ardèche (07). Get the problem? Although both letters had perfectly clearly handwritten addresses with the line "Allemagne" (Germany) on them, in one instance they had taken that German post code starting with "70" to be one in the département of Haute-Saône, the other time they had misread D-7..... as "07" for the département of Ardèche. How silly can you be?

 

Edited October 29, 2019 by Big Beat Steve

[soulpope]

12 minutes ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Years ago I had TWO such incidents where the culprit clearly was La Poste in France:

My post code starts with the number "70", and you can put the "D" for Germany in  Although both letters had perfectly clearly handwritten addresses with the line "Allemagne" (Germany) on them, in one instance they had taken that German post code starting with "70" to be one in the département of Haute-Saône, the other time they had misread D-7..... as "07" for the département of Ardèche. How silly can you be?

VERY silly .... the situation will even worsen as these companies pay a sh.t to their employees and quality control .... vanished ....

[medjuck]

26 minutes ago, Brad said:

It’s being run at a loss. That is hardly what I call great. If it can’t be run without a loss, then it should be privatized.  The post office has made some improvements but in response to what UPS and FedEx are doing. That’s called competition.  I don’t understand the last part of your statement, at least as it applies to the post office. 

What private company would send a letter to Alaska for the price of a stamp? Not everything is done to make money.

[erwbol]

11 minutes ago, medjuck said:

Not everything is done to make money.

Like healthcare. Privatisation only leads to rising costs and unequal treatment.

Obviously a healthy population, decent (power) infrastructure, a working postal system etc. contribute to a successful economy.

[Brad]

22 minutes ago, medjuck said:

What private company would send a letter to Alaska for the price of a stamp? Not everything is done to make money.

That is true but if you can’t run in the black or at least break even, eventually you will have to close your doors. You can’t keep spending what you don’t have. 

[erwbol]

3 minutes ago, Brad said:

That is true but if you can’t run in the black or at least break even, eventually you will have to close your doors. You can’t keep spending what you don’t have. 

Perhaps not if you keep on lowering taxes (especially on the rich) and increasing spending on the military.

The fact is a postal service to remote parts of the country needs to exist for society to function. The same goes for public transport. You can't just abolish these services without creating major backwater problem areas, like what happened in the Unites States.

[soulpope]

10 minutes ago, erwbol said:

Perhaps not if you keep on lowering taxes (especially on the rich) and increasing spending on the military .... 

😎 ....

[jlhoots]

A CD was mailed to me from NYC on Oct. 17. It has taken 12 days to get to Albuquerque. Tracking says scheduled delivery is tomorrow - so 13 days to wend its way across the country. Not very efficient, but at least it looks like it'll get here.

[Ken Dryden]

I now require insurance on all LPs sold due to the damage inflicted by the USPS. I also learned that sending an LP in those small cardboard mailers via media mail is risky, due to the chance that someone may toss a 65 lbs. box of books on top of it at the post office. I now use larger boxes with padding, especially if it is an LP priced $20 or more.

I mailed a huge box of CDs to Felser a few months ago and the thing got near his Pennsylvania home before journeying to Memphis, back to Chattanooga, Knoxville then finally his home.  

I recently tried to forward mail from a CPA firm to a previous owner of this house. Unfortunately, some bozo returned it to us instead of the CPA firm, clearly marked in the return address.

 

[Big Beat Steve]

2 minutes ago, Ken Dryden said:

I mailed a huge box of CDs to Felser a few months ago and the thing got near his Pennsylvania home before journeying to Memphis, back to Chattanooga, Knoxville then finally his home.  

 

Knoxville must be a USPS black hole. I remember that name very often figuring FOREVER in the tracking info of US shippings 2-3 years ago (when I still bought a bit more from the US), and this for shippings that originated nowhere near Knoxville if you draw a line from the shipper's home to any point on any of the coasts. I'd always figured European shippings are dispatched from somewhere on the East or West Coast, but apparently the USPS finds the South way more challenging ...
But sending something from TN to PA to see it arrive "almost" there and then return to TN must be about the weirdest thing ever ...

[Ken Dryden]

It drove me crazy, because of the number of CDs, the fact it wasn't insured, plus they weren't my CDs.

 

[aparxa]

On 29/10/2019 at 0:49 PM, Big Beat Steve said:

Troy, MI, instead of Troyes??

But I'll tell you - this can happen almost anywhere:

Years ago I had TWO such incidents where the culprit clearly was La Poste in France:

My post code starts with the number "70", and you can put the "D" for Germany in front of the post code (although this is not mandatory as long as the country is clearly indicated too).

Now there were two letters from France that arrived here with CONSIDERABLE delays (and one of them therefore too late for me to do anything with it as it contained entry tickets for a show at a particular date that of course had passed by the time I received the letter containing the tickets). Both had been returned/delayed with a mark of "non-existing address" on the back (and did not arrive until a second try was made), In one case there was a post office stamp of Vésoul (Haute Saône - 70) next to that "non-existing address mark" on the back, and the other letter carried a post office stamp from somewhere in the departement of Ardèche (07). Get the problem? Although both letters had perfectly clearly handwritten addresses with the line "Allemagne" (Germany) on them, in one instance they had taken that German post code starting with "70" to be one in the département of Haute-Saône, the other time they had misread D-7..... as "07" for the département of Ardèche. How silly can you be?

 

Yes, those high-speed automated mail-sorting/ZIP-readers machines can sometimes miss the essential information, the country!
The Jazz Epistles record (2014 RE) arrived fine about 10 days after my post. Great music but a bit désappointé that it's more a compilation than a proper reissue.

[jlhoots]

USPS is at it again. My Dusty Groove order is supposed to arrive tomorrow (1st Class mail).

Went from Chicago to Buffalo. Unlikely to make it to Santa Fe tomorrow. Seems to be going in the wrong direction!!