Problems With United States Postal Service

[zzand]

I haven't used the USPS for years. My bills come in electronically and are paid the same way. Junk mail is all I get in my box and I check it 2 or 3 times a week. Did all Christmas shopping online this years, used Fedex and UPS and everything was either early or on time.

[km1125]

FedEx has its issues as well...

A delivery to our family that was supposed take place on the 16th via FedEx, didn't occur until yesterday (12/23) - a week late... and then, it was dropped off outside in the rain at the outside corner of our neighbours' pole barn. If I hadn't called several times and finally broken through their wall of BS required to speak to an actual human, it would probably still be riding around in a truck with a website status of 'out for delivery' (followed by a 'delivery exception' ~7:30pm)...

Do your best to turn it into a f-ing political issue, robots.

Exactly.

Has there been a December in the last 10 or 20 years where folks haven't been complaining about throughout at the USPS?? It's gotten worse because or expectations have also increased due to FedEx, UPS, and Amazon being able to deliver much better than the USPS.

In fact, none of those other delivery mechanisms would even exist today if the USPS always had a mission of delivering the quickest with the lowest cost possible

[MWmetalhead]

I'll also vouch for the Fed Ex issues of late. My parents had a bad experience with them a month ago. Their package was delivered to the wrong house - five houses down the street!

UPS, on the other hand, has been terrific. Amazon delivery has also been really good.

[Rate This]

FedEx has its issues as well...

A delivery to our family that was supposed take place on the 16th via FedEx, didn't occur until yesterday (12/23) - a week late... and then, it was dropped off outside in the rain at the outside corner of our neighbours' pole barn. If I hadn't called several times and finally broken through their wall of BS required to speak to an actual human, it would probably still be riding around in a truck with a website status of 'out for delivery' (followed by a 'delivery exception' ~7:30pm)...

Do your best to turn it into a f-ing political issue, robots.

Exactly.

Has there been a December in the last 10 or 20 years where folks haven't been complaining about throughout at the USPS?? It's gotten worse because or expectations have also increased due to FedEx, UPS, and Amazon being able to deliver much better than the USPS.

In fact, none of those other delivery mechanisms would even exist today if the USPS always had a mission of delivering the quickest with the lowest cost possible

Amazon started its because the other 3 didn’t have enough capacity to handle the unbelievable volumes. UPS and FedEx started as package delivery companies competing with the likes of Railway Express Agency and Greyhound Package Express not the USPS. That intense competition came along later when the postal service shifted its business model more heavily into packages.

I would also point out that until Nixon it wasn’t a company or told to make a profit or anything. It was a DEPARTMENT of the government. Switching it to its current quasi-business state was a major mistake.

[km1125]

FedEx has its issues as well...

A delivery to our family that was supposed take place on the 16th via FedEx, didn't occur until yesterday (12/23) - a week late... and then, it was dropped off outside in the rain at the outside corner of our neighbours' pole barn. If I hadn't called several times and finally broken through their wall of BS required to speak to an actual human, it would probably still be riding around in a truck with a website status of 'out for delivery' (followed by a 'delivery exception' ~7:30pm)...

Do your best to turn it into a f-ing political issue, robots.

Exactly.

Has there been a December in the last 10 or 20 years where folks haven't been complaining about throughout at the USPS?? It's gotten worse because or expectations have also increased due to FedEx, UPS, and Amazon being able to deliver much better than the USPS.

In fact, none of those other delivery mechanisms would even exist today if the USPS always had a mission of delivering the quickest with the lowest cost possible

Amazon started its because the other 3 didn’t have enough capacity to handle the unbelievable volumes. UPS and FedEx started as package delivery companies competing with the likes of Railway Express Agency and Greyhound Package Express not the USPS. That intense competition came along later when the postal service shifted its business model more heavily into packages.

I would also point out that until Nixon it wasn’t a company or told to make a profit or anything. It was a DEPARTMENT of the government. Switching it to its current quasi-business state was a major mistake.

I probably should have been more accurate and say "they wouldn't exist in their present form" if the USPS always had a mission of delivering the quickest with the lowest cost possible. Yes, they'd exist, but only for packages too big or unusual for the USPS to be efficient at delivery.

Amazon realized that USPS was too inefficient and unreliable to handle most of their production. It would have been much easier for any business to scale up to meet the demand, rather than building it from scratch.

[Honeyman]

I don't know how Amazon makes money sometimes. Ordered a case for my wife's cell phone for $6 and it showed up less than 24 hours later. She didn't like the feel, so I ordered another one and processed a no charge return for the one she didn't like.

[MotorCityRadioFreak]

FedEx has its issues as well...

A delivery to our family that was supposed take place on the 16th via FedEx, didn't occur until yesterday (12/23) - a week late... and then, it was dropped off outside in the rain at the outside corner of our neighbours' pole barn. If I hadn't called several times and finally broken through their wall of BS required to speak to an actual human, it would probably still be riding around in a truck with a website status of 'out for delivery' (followed by a 'delivery exception' ~7:30pm)...

Do your best to turn it into a f-ing political issue, robots.

Did you know that USPS assists Fed Ex in getting a lot of their stuff? They middle man a lot of their transits. And NOW YOU KNOW!

[audiophile]

Other way around MCRF. Fed Ex planes carry a lot of USPS.

Fed Ex's largest customer is the USPS.

[audiophile]

USPS is slower than molasses. Been waiting since Dec 11 for a first class package. It's still showing that's it's on the east coast two weeks later.

In another case I ordered a small part from South Bend over week ago. Shows that's in Ft Wayne still.

Another part from Southeast Michigan, an hour away, took 5 days.

UPS a day late once last week.

Fedex a day early last week and on time.

[Rate This]

USPS is slower than molasses. Been waiting since Dec 11 for a first class package. It's still showing that's it's on the east coast two weeks later.

In another case I ordered a small part from South Bend over week ago. Shows that's in Ft Wayne still.

Another part from Southeast Michigan, an hour away, took 5 days.

UPS a day late once last week.

Fedex a day early last week and on time.

I’ve ordered several things on eBay.. they were shipped the next day and have already arrived ahead of schedule in a few cases.

[WC8KCY]

Shipped a gift out from Manistee to California on the 21st via USPS and despite being advised that it wouldn't arrive in time for Christmas, it was delivered on the 24th.

For me, the delays with USPS are with stuff coming or going east and/or south of Michigan. Transit times to/from NYC, Ohio, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania have been 6-9 days for some time now. I have some favorite online retailers in those places, and I don't order from them much anymore due to all the delays and tracking system hiccups.

Transit times to/from the Upper Peninsula, Wisconsin, and Minnesota have consistently been 2-3 days.

Transit times to/from the West Coast have consistently been 3-4 days.

Transit times to/from NW Ontario and Manitoba have consistently been 4-5 days.

It certainly seems odd that something mailed to/from Dryden, Ontario will always arrive sooner than to/from Dayton, Ohio...but that's the reality.

[TC Talks]

I has the same experience... 3 days to L.A. 3 days to NYC 12 days from Seattle.

First Class has taken double since August.

[Calvert DeForest]

My TV Guide from last week did NOT get here in my mailbox!!!

Now that's a good one!

I haven't bought a TV Guide since they dropped the local channel listings in the late 90's. Pretty much rendered that rag useless.

[bmw]

As someone who has been buying and selling on ebay for literally 20 years, my experience is:

-UPS is and has been top-notch. I'm shipping most of my stuff out this way now.

-FedEx USED to be good but in the past few months has slowed down considerably.

-USPS was pretty reliable until about 2 years ago. The first significant slowdown I noticed was actually LAST holiday season. Priority Mail from roughly November 2019 through January 2020 was taking an average of 5 days (and that was an average from over 30 packages I shipped). Things returned to relatively close to normal by summer of 2020, but the past few months have been an absolute disaster - numerous packages taking 3+ WEEKS (including some STILL sitting in Allen Park from as far back as late November).

And speaking of the Allen Park sort facility specifically - this place has been problematic for many years now. Any time I ever did have problems over the past decade, it was almost exclusively something wrong at Allen Park.

Bottom line is the USPS started going downhill over a year ago, but that decline accelerated rapidly the past few months.

On a side-note - what really ticks me off most about the USPS specifically is not so much that they're backed up, but rather that they're STILL CHARGING TOP DOLLAR for Priority Mail and STILL ADVERTISING IT as 1 to 3 day delivery.

https://www.usps.com/ship/priority-mail.htm

They do have an alert on that page, which takes you here:

https://postalpro.usps.com/node/8016

Their official position is that Priority Mail is now 2 to 4 business days as is First Class Packages. BULLSHIT. They know damn well they can't even come close to meeting their own stated expectations. How is this not intentionally false advertising?