USPS troubles

Their notification email was updated to package delivered. Must of been a glitch this morning.

USPS is working great for me, no issues at all lately. There were huge delays around the holidays last year running well into the start of this year - unprecedented volumes of packages, covid, labor shortages, winter storms, etc. If there is a problem, call the post office, they are usually very helpful. Don’t know how accurate banggood tracking is, but the post office has access to all of the details from when it entered their system to include images of the package.

A post office that I used to use sometimes to mail packages has a Ahole that works there, but all of the people at my local Post office are great! I’ve also run into a couple bad UPS drivers, but most are real nice, so sometimes you get stuck with a individual not doing the job properly no matter what service is being used. BTW, I have had the most problems with fedex ground and fedex freight services, though their overnight express is very good.

To be fair also, I forgot one episode that occured about 8 or 9 years ago.

We had a new lady on the Rural Route. They are usually great. This lady was not & did not last long… thank goodness.

I had a custom knife coming. A few hundred dollars. It had delivery confirmation BUT no signature required. :person_facepalming:

Well, I was tracking it. It popped up delivered.
Well, she delivered it alright. Just to a house with the same number about 3 miles away it turned out. :open_mouth:

I was beside myself to say the least because it was not at my house.

I called the PO & of course she was still on her route so no info from her.

No sooner had I hung up than the phone rang (still had a land line back then).
It was a guy I knew of vaguely as he did me.

He said he had a Priority Package for me at his house.

I breathed a sigh of relief that day, & immediately went to retrieve it. :wink: :white_check_mark:

The trouble is not in our post office. Our packages are being sent to distribution centers never to be seen again.

I think you may be right pennzy…. that may well be a weak link.

eh, we have a “community” mailbox of locked bins down the street that every few years seems to get damaged by miscreants and has to be replaced. Once that happens we go through a period where we have to go to a “central” post office to pick up our mail because they will no longer deliver to that box. It’s happening right now.

Other than that, we’ve had no problem, and this problem isn’t really a USPS problem, although I’m not sure where the decision was made to set our mail up that way. We are not in a gated community or pay any association fees. That’s how it was set up when my house was built and I bought it.

those “distribution centers” probably have nothing to do with the USPS, they are likely private contractors hired by banggood to pick up packages form the air or sea port and deliver them to the USPS for the “last mile” delivery.

Those aren’t the ones I’m talking about. My wife’s lost packages were lost by the USPS. Orders from US companies. USPS tracking.

They all suck. FedEx is the worst and ironically Fred Smith is still the CEO.

Live in the mountains. USPS does not deliver to houses, only to the PO Box. UPS and FedEx deliver some things to houses and others to the PO to go into the box or be picked up. Post office is closed on weekends and FedEx just marked a package “undeliverable” on Saturday because the PO was not open and he did not want to drive up to our house, lol. I was home. But they did deliver it to the PO on Monday.
Stopped buying flashlights from China because they do not use the full address with house address and PO Box number, even though I provide it and use zip plus four with a box number in the four. The package becomes undeliverable, return to sender, since the post office does not know which box to put the pickup notice in. USA companies put the full address and I actually get the item.

We have a similar situation , kinda. We have always received our mail at the post office. UPS and FedEx won’t deliver to an address if it has a post office box number in it. A lot of companies won’t allow a post office box number in the shipping address if shipping UPS or FedEx. Trouble is sometimes you don’t know how your package will be shipped. Omit the post office box number and the post office throws fits. Include it and UPS/FedEx throws fits. My work around is to leave off the PO and just use Box and the number. Works 99% of the time. Works with orders from China too.

We have mail delivery issues with our physical address (sometimes we can't even get in or out of there) and have always used a PO Box, but recently signed up for a free USPS service called Premium PO Box Service Street Addressing:

With this service, instead of using our PO Box address, we use the physical address of the local Post Office but append a "#" symbol followed by our "PO Box number" to the street address line in the local Post Office's address.

We use this address as our physical address for deliveries from UPS, FedEx, DHL, Amazon and whenever we do not know how a package will be shipped. It has worked well, except for large and heavy items, since all packages must still meet USPS size and weight regulations or USPS will not accept them at the Post Office, but we usually know which items those will be and make other arrangements.

Never knew of that service. Might be good for winter delivery when the driveway isn’t always the best. How much $?

It's "free" (only had to sign a form), but not all Post Offices offer this service.

EDIT: here is a link to the agreement form:

https://www.usps.com/pobox/customer-agreement-for-premium-po-box-service-enhancements.pdf

Agreed with most things already stated.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Amazon delivers take priority, over even USPS priority mail. Pretty sure they’ve tookin the post office hostage. PRIME i tee YA.

On top of that lazy and/or over worked local drivers. Use to always say DELIVERY FAILED, with try again tomorrow. Okay fine! NOW driver trys to blame me for NO SECURE DELIVERY SITE, and I have to call to reschedule delivery. ALL because the driver blew past my house without stopping. Its refreshing tho when they flip a uturn after passing the house, to make it right and deliver!

pennzy is referring to “distribution centers” here in the USA.

You are correct, the logistics couriers in China have nothing at all to do with the USPS.,

Just had this happen with one of my orders, but no response from USPS and no call from a friendly neighbor. Not only do they make it hard to reach someone through the automated system, but when you do get someone they’re slower than molasses and ask you to repeat everything multiple times like they’re getting paid by the second.

Long story short, they gave me a case number and said someone would contact me within 2 business days. There’s been no contact for over a week, no package and I just got an email survey asking about my satisfaction with the resolution of the case. Needless to say the ratings were not high.

KuoH

Sorry to hear that kuoh.
Delivery confirmation with no signature only shows it was delivered… not where. :person_facepalming:
That sux… :frowning:

Although, and this could possibly help you; supposedly now when a package is scanned as delivered it shows the GPS location where the scan took place.

Good luck…… :white_check_mark:

So far the USPS has been OK here at the house. We have a community mail box a few doors down the street. If a package is too large to fit the box, they leave key for a few of the larger boxes in the same area.

FedEx and UPS have been pretty good my stuff has only gone to neighbors twice. BUT both just drop the package off at the door and don’t ring the bell.
I don’t care that they don’t wait - but - Just ring the darn bell - so I know something is being dropped off.
Sometimes it’s food. I’d rather not have it sitting in 100 degree heat.
All the Best,
Jeff

I’ve had 2 packages (Sofirn lights) incorrectly addressed from their end get forwarded so they would land in my PO Box, they never made it there. I was told by my local postmaster that they were originally mailed 3rd class and were technically not eligible for forwarding thus sent to local distribution center and “discarded”. Discarded my ass!, some kind of scam here I think, those packages (and who knows how many others) certainly did not land in the dumpster.