Why does USPS suck...

Fastglas

Fastglas

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Jan 25, 2015
Messages
130
Location
Denver
Display Name
Display name:
GK
I admit it. My wife and I have a bad Amazon habit. We probably get a box at our door once every week AT least. I figure it ends up being cheaper than buying at the local grocery or mall. And we don't have to spend a ton of time shopping which I am not a fan of -- I assume I am not alone here.

Anyway, most of the stuff we buy on Amazon for whatever reason ends up coming to us through UPS. But once in a while we get a package delivered trough USPS. The last three times we have had something come in from USPS, it ALWAYS has been delayed or has some sort of problem with delivery. One time, they delivered it to a different address. Another time, they required signature and even though I went online and requested delivery without receipt (which was a ridiculous PITA), it still never got translated to the driver so it took two more days before they figured it out. And the most recent time, I swear that they never even tried to deliver it to the house (we were home the entire time) and they ended up marking on the ticket (electronically, btw, no paper notice was left) that the "business was closed." I live in a prominent, well known, neighborhood so it is hard to believe that they can be this dense.

I honestly have to think twice now whether I am willing to order anything that comes through the mail from USPS. I NEVER have cared in the past. But now...I am realizing it makes a difference.
 
I saw them drive past my house on Thursday. I was expecting 2 Netflix movies.

I thought it was a mistake.

Sure enough, on Friday there were 2 separate delivery stacks (regular envelopes folded between magazines) in the mail box.

The best one was a letter posted to a small town in NY. I live in Texas. Nothing similar to our address. Zip code, name, street, nothing....

I keep on hearing that it is the best service in the world. How can any company deliver a product that to your house for 54 cents from across the US? Deliver 0 (I run 2 companies and my own private mail from my house, so that never happens except when they drive past my house without stopping) to 20 pieces in one day. 54 cents to 10 dollars a day for one house, stop b****ing.
 
I am in Alaska right now. I ordered a part for my car. Came from Tennessee. I wanted it as soon as possible shipping to Alaska and paid for 2 day air. It took 14 days.

During that time, another package shipped USPS Priority from Texas took only 3 days. For a whole lot less cost.

I have found that when I need it delivered on a timely schedule that USPS Priority is the way to go.

I am still arguing with FedEx.

And never, never use UPS.
 
I love em. When I lived in MT I shipped tons of stuff from MS to MT. They guaranteed next day or my money back via express mail. Not once did they ever deliver on time. Always got my money back. 2 day shipping for free.
 
Zeldman said:
I am in Alaska right now. I ordered a part for my car. Came from Tennessee. I wanted it as soon as possible shipping to Alaska and paid for 2 day air. It took 14 days.

During that time, another package shipped USPS Priority from Texas took only 3 days. For a whole lot less cost.

I have found that when I need it delivered on a timely schedule that USPS Priority is the way to go.

I am still arguing with FedEx.

And never, never use UPS.
Click to expand...

It's hit or miss to AK. A lot of times they stuff it on a FedEx plane and it's there in a day or three. Then there are the times they put it on a boat out of Cali and its 2-3 weeks.
 
My wife and I have a bad Amazon habit too - probably a half dozen packages a week or so.

Around here, all three carriers are generally reliable. Very few problems - maybe two per year.
 
Maybe I'm just lucky but I haven't had any issues with USPS, UPS, or Fedex.
 
A favorite whipping boy!
USPS; spotty service. Several packages & envelopes have disappeared for weeks (or for good) in the last 10 years here. I checked the address we provided on several of the ones that made it (clients brought label in for us to inspect) and we had it exactly correct.
In the last few years a cost-savings measure has every piece of mail going to a sorting facility 180 miles away. If I have a postcard going to the place next door to the post office, even if I hand that postcard to the postmistress, it all gets dumped into the El Paso bin. That way no sorting takes place in-house til all the local outgoing mail is received by the Post office the next day (up to three). So that 50' journey that used to happen within one day is markedly prolonged. AND an exponential increase in the opportunity for the postcard to be misplaced or go on a country-wide walkabout. We used to have a van taking mail locally from town to town (there are a half dozen in this area) but no more of that.
Other bug bear about USPS is....they could not tell me what address to use for my own mail! Eventually the computerized address verification system became available to vendors but they were unaware of it, and once they were given it, did not agree with it. So we have been through at least 4 changes and we are still not 100% sure of my 4 digit suffix on the zip code.
That is thousands of $ in wasted stationery.
But they are very good at ensuring they get their pensions and benefits covered.
The local people working in our post office are wonderful and hardworking. It's management (& their decisions) I have problems with.
 
On Monday i called Kansas city steaks and ordered some steaks for my sister. The person asked ok if they deliver this Friday UPS? I said "great" they did arrive Friday, on time and in perfect shape as does everything I buy from Amazon. Never a problem.
 
UPS (pronounced "OOPS!) manages to screw up just as often as USPS in my neighborhood. Everything from lost cases of wine to very fragile antique glass xray tube that was professionally packed in a custom made crate that was smashed and left, damaged crate and all on my front door step. And the insurance only pays off for the guy that screwed ya.
 
I live on an airpark in the Arizona Outback. Our UPS driver knows all of us and we consider him a friend. He has insisted that I open a package that had exterior damage in front of him. How's that for business. :)
 
Zeldman said:
I am in Alaska right now. I ordered a part for my car. Came from Tennessee. I wanted it as soon as possible shipping to Alaska and paid for 2 day air. It took 14 days.

During that time, another package shipped USPS Priority from Texas took only 3 days. For a whole lot less cost.

I have found that when I need it delivered on a timely schedule that USPS Priority is the way to go.

I am still arguing with FedEx.

And never, never use UPS.
Click to expand...

We are in Juneau and prefer Priority Mail. It's way cheaper than UPS and gets here quicker.
 
All USPS priority and express mail in the U.S. is transported by FedEx.
 
Having said all that about USPS....sending a letter is still ridiculously cheap. I'd rather they double 1st class postage and improve on service a bit.

Fedex is our hero out here, we now get routine supplies for the business in less than 24 hours. That is nothing less than miraculous compared to 20 years ago (we are in the boonies). A few clicks on our distributor's website, and the next day by 4:00 it is here. We don't pay for shipping. I think they must have a volume deal where everything they ship to us is Std Overnight.
Only improvement I would like is better insurance. I can spend 2 days collecting blood samples etc, using a thousand $ in consumables, another $2000 in cowboy labor, stress on the animals, feed costs and if they lose or damage the samples, Fedex will only cover the actual value of the blood. Ie $zero. Not the expense of collecting the samples again. No matter what declared value I enter and pay for, according to two separate reps. Or if they lose a brain, and everyone exposed must take rabies post exposure treatment, it can be >$20K depending on the # of people.
 
timwinters said:
All USPS priority and express mail in the U.S. is transported by FedEx.
Click to expand...

Not true. FedEx got the largest share of the contract but UPS has quite a bit of the volume along with the pax guys.
 
I've had pretty good luck with most of them most of the time. Sometimes fedex can't figure out where my house is. A couple of times I've had UPS knock on my door so softly that I couldn't hear it while home, slap a "signature required" slip on my door, and rocket out if the driveway with my package.

The best one though wasn't as much poor service as funny. I ordered 4 car tires and they came in 2 bundles of 2 tires just held together with straps. I watched the UPS guy spend about 5 minutes trying to stack a round pair of tires on top of another round pair of tires on his little hand truck....seemingly unclear as to why they kept falling off until finally bringing them to the door one at a time.
 
AKBill said:
We are in Juneau and prefer Priority Mail. It's way cheaper than UPS and gets here quicker.
Click to expand...

USPS is the preferred carrier here, as well, followed by UPS. FedEx is only good if it absolutely, positively has to be there in 2 or 3 weeks.

The more remote you are, the better the PS and UPS are. :yes:

Mark
 
Busflyer said:
Not true. FedEx got the largest share of the contract but UPS has quite a bit of the volume along with the pax guys.
Click to expand...

I wonder how that would that work in today's "hub-and-spoke" freight transportation world. Maybe UPS has gates at the FedEx hub in Memphis? :rolleyes2:
 
As to the OP's comments, I've experienced some of that, and it almost always turns out that the regular carrier is on vacation or the like.

Like Dave referenced, sometimes, USPS management do things which are either boneheaded, or just plain crooked.

Building I used to be in had what they call a "VIM Room"; I've not a clue what "VIM" stands for, but it was a little sorting room with the postboxes on one wall and a Dutch door. The postal carrier (Sam) would roll in at around 7:00AM with bags of mail for our building and the retail center attached, and by 0845 or so, all of the regular mail was in the post boxes and ready to be collected, and Sam would do his floor to floor rounds with the Certified/signature required pieces, and be back in the mail room by 0930, there to cheerfully hand over all the larger packages and certified items that hadn't been signed-for on his rounds. He left at around noon to deliver a couple of other routes, and another dude would swing by at 5:00PM to collect outgoing mail. Worked great.

Then the local postmistress decreed that it would be "more efficient" for Sam to sort the mail at the post office, then drive it to the building to be placed in the boxes (hence, handling each piece twice, instead of once, at the local level). Delayed mail distribution from before 9:00 to 11:00 or so, and left no time for Sam to man the room and distribute packages, etc. Sam came around to each of us, apologized for the poor service and told us that there was no reasoning with the idiot postmistress and, thus, he was retiring.

So then, the mail started being ready in the boxes around 2:30 pm or so, and the pickup time for outgoing mail was changed from 5:00pm to 3:00 pm. Net effect: we effectively lost a full day in the business cycle because mail arrived too late to be processed in that day's business, and left too early for that day's work to go out - but postmistress' claimed rate of timely delivery got better, because (in USPS world) delivered at 2:45 pm is the same thing as delivered at 8:45 am, and mail dropped at 4:00 pm was considered mailed the next day. Plus, we started having to drive to the post office for packages, because it was considered inefficient to have someone in the VIM room at all.

Moronic.
 
Where I live now, I haven't had problems with any of them when the packages were handled end-to-end by the same carrier (including USPS using whomever as an air freight carrier). When given a choice, I prefer USPS because we don't get mail delivery to residences here, so the packages just wait at the post office with the rest of the mail.

What I absolutely hate are the hybrid services: UPS SurePost and FedEx SmartPost. FedEx SmartPost is the worst of the two. If I know that that's how a vendor ships, I'll order from a different vendor. They really are that bad.

The difference between SurePost / SmartPost and regular USPS is that SurePost / SmartPost packages are only considered "mail" and handled by USPS for the "last mile." Regular USPS Priority or Express Mail is considered "mail" and to be in USPS custody the whole time, even if the package happens to tag along in a UPS or FedEx airplane for part of the trip.

What this means is that end-to-end USPS is handled with a higher contractual priority than SurePost / SmartPost. Packages being shipped by either SurePost or SmartPost can sit for days at every transfer point while packages with higher priority jump the lines ahead of them. FedEx, in particular, gives SmartPost packages low priority. I've had packages sitting for almost a week in one of their New Jersey sorting stations.

Until the packages are handed off to USPS, they are not considered "mail," and there's nothing USPS can do to speed them along their way. They don't even show up in USPS tracking. In the case of FedEx, they show up as "Delivered" in FedEx tracking the moment they're handed off to USPS -- even if the hand-off point is a day or two away. (UPS somehow manages to track them right through to final delivery.)

All three of the "last-mile" services are good where I live. If the packages are shipped end-to-end via the same carriers, they all arrive on time. Given a choice, I choose USPS for the sake of convenience because I have to go to the post office anyway -- there is no carrier-route mail delivery here -- but other than that, I have no particular preference.

Also, because this is such a tiny place, there's an unusual (and probably illegal) degree of cooperation between the three carriers. The post office will usually accept packages of reasonable size that were destined for street delivery via UPS or FedEx if the recipient wasn't home. The Post Office staff knows everyone's pickup habits and will usually sign for failed UPS / FedEx deliveries if they're reasonably sure the recipient will be coming around. Sometimes they'll even call the recipient if he or she has already made their "post office run" for the day. It's all very friendly, and probably very illegal, but no one complains.

Another source of frustration is that some shippers use FedEx or UPS, but use the USPS address verification system instead of the relevant carriers' systems. This is a problem because the USPS system corrects "street addresses" (which are actually only 911 addresses here) to P.O. boxes because we don't get carrier-route delivery. Because USPS and FedEx can't legally deliver to P.O. boxes, this causes the systems to vomit on the address label. Unless the person doing the addressing is savvy enough to know how to do an override, it usually results in the package being downgraded to SurePost or SmartPost (which can be shipped to P.O. boxes).

The shippers could avoid all this by simply using the correct verification systems for their carriers. UPS and FedEx do deliver to "street addresses" here, so their systems don't convert them to P.O. boxes like USPS's does. The problem only occurs when they ship via UPS or FedEx, but use the USPS verification system.

As for Amazon, their stubborn refusal to allow customers to choose their delivery carrier (as opposed to just an arbitrary shipping class) is the reason I find myself ordering less and less from Amazon these days, especially if I need something reasonably quickly, but not overnight. Unless I choose Next Day, Amazon shipments are hit-or-miss for me. Sometimes "standard" shipping means next-say, other times more than a week. "Two-day" shipping isn't much better: It also can take as long as a week if they choose FedEx SmartPost.

I'd rather have the option to just choose my carrier, end-to-end, and pay whatever that method costs; and more and more, I find myself gravitating toward merchants who provide that option at check-out.

Rich
 
Last edited:
I've never had issues with USPS. What makes me laugh are the UPS guys. I've had packages delivered to the house where they ring the doorbell and in the time it takes me to walk 15 feet from the couch to the front door, they've made it back to their truck, started it up, and are driving away. I don't expect them to hang around and chat, but how do they move that fast?

Also, for whoever above mentioned how the USPS funds their pension and benefits; their pension funding was determined by Congress, and it's the reason the USPS is borderline insolvent. They're required to fund their pensions far beyond what any reasonable private business would consider doing. Since that part is mandated by Congress, they have to cut in other places which can lead to degraded service.
 
bartmc said:
It's hit or miss to AK. A lot of times they stuff it on a FedEx plane and it's there in a day or three. Then there are the times they put it on a boat out of Cali and its 2-3 weeks.
Click to expand...

Since Cali appears to have no navigable waterways, I'm surprised it got there that fast. ;)
 
My USPS package finally arrived this afternoon. Their tracking system still says it is out for delivery.

Interesting difference in tracking systems between USPS and UPS: USPS tracking system requires drivers to upload their delivery record after the end of their route/shift since their portable units don't have any means of transmitting home while they are mobile. The units store the record and when the driver returns to home base, the delivery record is uploaded at that time.

UPS on the other hand uses remote wireless capable devices that upload on submission.

This difference really only becomes a problem if there is an issue with the delivery of a package. USPS will not be able to tell you anything until the next day whereas UPS can give you more relevant time based detail and will willingly do it on a phone call. Has anyone actually tried to call USPS on the phone -- don't bother -- it requires divine intervention.
 
I've only good things to say about USPS, cheap, normally on time, don't break stuff.

DHL and fedex are good.

UPS, yeah don't even get me started, it's cheaper for me to just break the item myself, then pay to have it broken :lol:
 
I think USPS is pretty good. I used to ship express to/from Guam a lot, hoping that it would get delayed but was always on time (2 day delivery). On the other hand, priority mail would take WEEKS and was much slower than first-class to/from Guam. Never understood why.

Domestically I love first-class mail and priority flat rate envelope (with free delivery confirmation and insurance). Much cheaper than UPS/Fedex. Almost always have good experiences with USPS, but when things go wrong it's really hard to rectify unless you know your mail carrier. I also like that they offer money orders which I've had to purchase from time to time. I've also used them for legal matters to send international registered mail, return receipt. Only method of service recognized by the Hague. :)

I lived in Canada for a few years and Canada Post was a complete disaster. USPS by comparison is amazeballs. The Republicans gave USPS a really hard time by making them prefund retirement/health care benefits, which no other company in the US is required to do. But they have been righting the ship nonetheless, slowly. Frankly I think first-class mail is incredibly cheap and could probably stand to have rates increased quite a bit, but USPS is properly putting much more focus on the premium services like priority mail/express mail.
 
Last edited:
I had to return a defective part to a vendor last week. I sent it USPS priority mail with tracking. The vendor called and asked for a tracking number so they would know when to expect it. When I called my shipper for a tracking number, they said it was delivered at 10:30am that day (dropped off with no signature). The vendor said he was there when the mail came and the package wasn't delivered. At 4:30pm the vendor contacted me to tel me that the package just arrived. I believed the vendor.

But priority is a lot cheaper than Fed-X or UPS.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top