USPS Rant.

[Sullybob]

I made an order last last month for some shaving gear. It was shipped to me Priority mail with delivery confirmation. USPS says it was delivered on the 1st of March at 3:51 PM, I was home at the time. I have not received the package.

After going to the post office three times and calling them several times the bottom line according to a route supervisor is this; All delivery confirmation guarantees is delivery to a zip code, not to a physical address. They have absolutely no way of knowing where the package is. They apologized and told me I need to contact the vendor and have the charge removed from my credit card. Why is it the vendors fault? The easy answer to that is because the package was not insured. If it was insured then maybe they could do something.

 

[Barbash]

Sorry to hear about your experience and good luck with everything. Is there a signature for whom it was delivered to? You can look it up on USPS's website if you still have the tracking number.

I had trouble with them last week when they delivered to a different house not even in my neighborhood.

 

[Sullybob]

Sorry to hear about your experience and good luck with everything. Is there a signature for whom it was delivered to? You can look it up on USPS's website if you still have the tracking number.

I had trouble with them last week when they delivered to a different house not even in my neighborhood.

Thanks, this whole thing is just really frustrating.

No signature was required. It was just delivery confirmation which is different from signature confirmation, according to the route supervisor.

 

[jkh]

Sheesh! Luckily, I have had very little trouble with the USPS, but I have read so many "horror" stories like this one that I get a little nervous everything any of my precious shaving gear or B/S/T sales are enroute.


Good luck. Have you tried beating down the doors of all your neighbors?

 

[texbilly]

Ugh. I'm very sorry to hear this, Shawn! I've had generally great luck with USPS but to this day (5 months later) have never recovered a package I sent which was "confirmed" delivered to the recipient's local post office (usually the last stop previous to the destination). Multiple escalations produced nothing and at one point, when I spoke directly with that local post office, they pointed me to MY post office for help, even though they documented delivery at their facility!

Well, I'm no real help other than to empathize. When their system does screw up, it seems to really screw up!

 

[Austin]

I had the same problem with an expensive watch that showed it was delivered on their website. I made a few trips to the post office until they finally found it. They had no explanation why they could not initially find it. Overall it was 2 weeks later. Good luck.

 

[Spivey]

Shawn, that stinks.

 

[Sullybob]

Thanks guys.

Jeremy, I haven't beaten down the doors of my neighbors, yet. If they had my package they would deliver it to me. I live in a pretty small sub-division and we all pretty much know each other or recognize each other.

Thanks Bill. Its amazing how difficult it is to get anything done at the post office. Each time I go in or call I have to start from ground zero. For example, the route supervisor had the post man check the mail boxes to make sure he didn't put it in the wrong slot. They did this on Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. If he didn't find it on Saturday It isn't going to materialize in the mail box another day...

Heres hoping that it shows up Andrew. That would be great.

 

[Mr. Imperial]

I generally hate all sorts of mailing, but we've got it way better down here in the States than our Canadian friends. The Canadian Post is notoriously awful.

 

[Will P.C.]

I have always had good luck the USPS until about 1 month ago.

a 27 dollar item was lost, but they claim its still en route. I mailed it 3 weeks ago, so I doubt it will appear at the buyers house.

Delivery conf. doesn't mean jack. It works 90 percent of the time, but 10 percent is a huge difference when talking about millions of items being shipped.

I am seriously thinking about insuring anything over 20 dollars and using flat rate boxes for everything.

I usually print my labels out and put them in the mailbox. One day I had like 20 packages that needed to be delivered and set up an appt for them to come and get them. 2 days later I get every package back because the postage was wrong on all of them by 1 or 2 ounces. This is the equivalent of 10-20cents. I lost all the money I spent creating those labels and had to print out more. Total lost about around 60 dollars since it was too late to void the labels.

 

[raisindot]

I had never heard that delivery confirmation didn't confirm delivery to an address. I've used it many times, checked status online, and have always seen it confirmed that a package was delivered to a particular address.

In any case, the fault isn't necessarily that of the Post Office--it's the fault of the shipper for not sending it registered or insured or your fault for not requesting to have it delivered with a signatured required.

I don't want to defend the post office in any way, but, they're not responsible for what happens to a package after it's delivered. I'd suggest using UPS or some other service that requires a signature upon delivery for anything valuable.

Jeff in Boston

 

[richmondesi]

I had never heard that delivery confirmation didn't confirm delivery to an address. I've used it many times, checked status online, and have always seen it confirmed that a package was delivered to a particular address.

In any case, the fault isn't necessarily that of the Post Office--it's the fault of the shipper for not sending it registered or insured or your fault for not requesting to have it delivered with a signatured required.

I don't want to defend the post office in any way, but, they're not responsible for what happens to a package after it's delivered. I'd suggest using UPS or some other service that requires a signature upon delivery for anything valuable.

Jeff in Boston

 

[Sullybob]

I had never heard that delivery confirmation didn't confirm delivery to an address. I've used it many times, checked status online, and have always seen it confirmed that a package was delivered to a particular address.

In any case, the fault isn't necessarily that of the Post Office--it's the fault of the shipper for not sending it registered or insured or your fault for not requesting to have it delivered with a signatured required.

I don't want to defend the post office in any way, but, they're not responsible for what happens to a package after it's delivered. I'd suggest using UPS or some other service that requires a signature upon delivery for anything valuable.

Jeff in Boston

The route supervisor explained that delivery confirmation does not confirm delivery to a particular address, it only confirms delivery to a particular zip code.

Just to make sure that I'm not going crazy my Label/Receipt Number is;
9101 7850 9140 1418 6563 05

When I input that into the USPS web site track and confirm section I get the following information.

Delivered, March 01, 2010, 3:51 pm, CEDAR PARK, TX 78613
Out for Delivery or Available at PO Box, March 01, 2010, 11:04 am, CEDAR PARK, TX 78613
Sorting Complete, March 01, 2010, 10:34 am, CEDAR PARK, TX 78613
Arrival at Post Office, March 01, 2010, 8:41 am, CEDAR PARK, TX 78613
Processed through Sort Facility, February 28, 2010, 12:40 am, AUSTIN, TX 78710
Electronic Shipping Info Received, February 26, 2010


I think they should be responsible to deliver a package to the correct address, not tell me that the vendor should refund my money because he didn't insure the package or require a signature. I would hazard a guess that the vendor thought (like I did) that delivery confirmation meant that they would confirm they delivered it to my address, not my zip code.

I understand that they are not responsible for a package after its delivered, but they didn't deliver it to the destination that they were paid to deliver it to.

 

[jkh]

It seems that Signature Confirmation is a better service than Delivery Confirmation (if we can even call Delivery Confirmation a service).

 

[C Reed]

Nothing makes me miss London more then comparing the service of the USPS to that of the Royal Mail.

A letter to me from a freind thanking me for hosting her when she was visiting arrived, it was adressed as such: "Chris Reed, The large building on the corner of McGregor Rd, All Saints Rd London W11" as she could not remember my adress or even full post code. I arived the day after it was sent.

 

[jkh]

Nothing makes me miss London more then comparing the service of the USPS to that of the Royal Mail.

A letter to me from a freind thanking me for hosting her when she was visiting arrived, it was adressed as such: "Chris Reed, The large building on the corner of McGregor Rd, All Saints Rd London W11" as she could not remember my adress or even full post code. I arived the day after it was sent.

 

[Tolduonce]

This may be a bit off topic, but noteworthy all the same. The USPS is bleeding to death before our eyes, yet they refuse to work to stem the hemorrhaging IMO. Just a rate increase every few months or so. Other delivery services seem so much more customer oriented. I don't even need to name the other two major players in the package delivery business here. Try tracking a shipment on the USPS site and it's likely the goods will be in your hot little hands while the tracking site says something to the effect that they've received a notice to pick up your stuff from the shipper's facility. How is it that others can implement technology to give us an semi accurate idea of a package's progression while the USPS cannot? I honestly think they haven't upgraded with the times and still have residual feelings that they're the only game in town and are just to big to fail (or care). This lose money/raise rates mentality is leading to their extinction and they don't seem to have the will to fix things. Now, I know they're saddled with moving tons of pure junk mail everyday, (stuff that goes straight to my recycle bin without ever making it into the house proper) just the pure pulp paper fliers that end up in my mailbox in a year could probably save a good swath of rain forest trees, but would it kill them to hire some software whiz kids to fix their issues? OK, end of rant. Think I'll go shave and refind my happy place.

 

[professorchaos]

I made an order last last month for some shaving gear. It was shipped to me Priority mail with delivery confirmation. USPS says it was delivered on the 1st of March at 3:51 PM, I was home at the time. I have not received the package.

After going to the post office three times and calling them several times the bottom line according to a route supervisor is this; All delivery confirmation guarantees is delivery to a zip code, not to a physical address. They have absolutely no way of knowing where the package is. They apologized and told me I need to contact the vendor and have the charge removed from my credit card. Why is it the vendors fault? The easy answer to that is because the package was not insured. If it was insured then maybe they could do something.

Delivery confirmation only guarantees delivery to a zip code, not to a physical address. Seriously? So a delivery confirmation isn't really a delivery confirmation, is it?

 

[Sullybob]

Delivery confirmation only guarantees delivery to a zip code, not to a physical address. Seriously? So a delivery confirmation isn't really a delivery confirmation, is it?

No it isn't. Its total crap. From the USPS web site;

Verify delivery with Delivery Confirmation. Our low cost Delivery Confirmation service gives you the date, ZIP Code™ and time your article was delivered. If delivery was attempted you will get the date and time of attempted delivery. You can easily access this information with our Track & Confirm tool.

Like Tolduonce pointed out. The USPS is bleeding to death and they can't seem to get it together, or care enough to really try to fix the problems. The tracking system is garbage too. The status of my package Electronic Shipping Info Received, February 26, 2010 from the 26th then on the 1st all the other statuses showed up. Imagine my surprise when their wasn't a box on my porch or in my mail box.

 

[LeverTime]

From what I can tell, delivery confirmation doesn't even get updated sometimes. I had something shipped to me in December, and received it promptly, but according to their website it's still "in transit".

Where I live USPS is orders of magnitude better than UPS. UPS frequently delivers to the wrong house, and has not once had me sign for a "signature required" package. The delivery man just signs it himself and drops it on my doorstep if I'm lucky, another doorstep if I'm not. If I lived in the boonies that might not be terrible, but I live in a major US city, where all kinds of weirdos walk by each day.