USPS Dilemma

[vesther]

On a Private Sale, I tried to ship something to a TechIMO Member that I will not name (for Privacy Purposes) through USPS. Item I'm not going to name either. I shipped the promised item to the destination through USPS with Delivery Confirmation, but unfortunately, the anonymous TechIMO Member told me through Private Messaging that he did not yet received the item and I had to check the USPS Tracking and the USPS claims that it did received it. Upon knowing of such delay, it's the way the USPS at the said member's locale that is improperly handling the "things" at their post office. Though I have not called the USPS to see what their beef is yet, I shall find out Monday to see what is wrong with them.

From this point on, if I have to ship items to you, I'm going to have to ship it to you either UPS, FedEx, or even Airborne Express because it appears that at times, the USPS, though they charge less for items shipped, sometimes mishandle items at certain locales. The next time I make a sale out of you, I will no longer ship it USPS due to issues on my most recent Private Sale.

Again, I'm going to check on the beef of the problem with the USPS Monday when I'm on Break or Lunch and followups will be posted here.

[finalnight]

actually, i always ship USPS never had a problem, but today I found out how cheap fedex ground is, so I am switching to them!

[Christian-Comp]

I have only a couple things to say about this. When the USPS receives something delivery confirmation, there are two ways of scanning it. If it is a major office, the item will be scanned by a machine, but it will not be listed as "delivered." If it is a smaller office, it will be scanned as "attempted" or "delivered." Occasionally it will be scanned as "refused" or something similar to that. The only way that it will be scanned as "delivered," is where the person is there and the carrier, (or clerk in cases of the PO Boxes) scans it, OR, when the recipient is not there and the package is able to be left in a safe location, such as in a mailbox or in the door, or wherever.

If the package is scanned "delivered" and is placed in the mailbox or suitable location, and it the recipient did not receive it, there are three things that have occured. Either A) the person did receive it and said they did not, this happens all the time, B) the person was a victim of someone coming by and taking this, or C) the unlikely (but possible) event that the carrier scanned it as delivered and kept it for him/herself. I seriously doubt this happened but anything is possible. The reason for this is because most carriers are monitored by postal inspectors or supervisors - this drives them crazy. I hate the USPS, but unfortuanately I work for them.

I like FedEx a lot but in B) (above) I have had someone take something from me that was delivered. I have a waiver signature on file that lets FedEx deliver without me being there and not requiring a signature. I never got to get my item and had to reorder it.

It probably wouldn't do any good to call the USPS on it. There are two things can be done.

I would (if it were me), first, have the recipient go to the post office there and try to find out where his/her package is. Second, I would go to the local post office myself and file a trace on this delivery confirmation.

If the package was found to be delivered, then it is either A) of B) above.

[M_Six]

My wife ships books via USPS all the time. Media Mail is dirt cheap, so there's no choice of switching services. Still, maybe 2 or 3 out of every 20 books disappears. USPS is far from reliable. If you're shipping anything of any value, make sure you insure it.