Thread: Unreasonable delay-lost package strategy.

I don't want to dump unnecessarily but I don't really think this is unreasonable negatating. Twice recently I ordered something on eBay that was not just late but unusually late arriving. Maybe I'm late to the party and everyone already knows this but I think it's worth noting. 2020 was an unusual year in many respects and I know that the shipping loads were already higher even before the holidays. This notwithstanding I had two packages that went more than two weeks delayed after their expected due date. One was 16 days over and the other was 17 days over. Both also showed the initial arrival at the source post office then no other history in the tracking. I probably shouldn't have waited as long but in both cases I finally got disgusted and filed a missing package case with USPS. In the first case the package was delivered 2 days later. In this last case it was the very next day. In fact it was about 18hrs. later.

Now what does that say? That says that my package sat moldering in the local post office for probably that entire time. It also suggests that had I not filed a case that package may have lingered indefinitely. So here is the lesson that I have learned that hopefully will help someone else. If it shows no history in the tracking information and goes past the expected delivery date file case with USPS immediately. That would have saved me all of the aggravation, the slamming the mailbox door and the foot tapping looking at my watch. No I'm not trying to make anyone's life miserable because I know they're overloaded, I just want them to do their job and do it correctly. Packages disappearing is not acceptable. When you pay for a service you should get that service rendered.

From my perspective, it’s still not bad for time. I know I’m the exception and few people have slower services than I. I’m waiting on several packages that are over a month in transit, one from eastern Canada and the other from California. I do a lot of finger tapping and exercising of patience. It is frustrating when the last leg of a journey takes so very very long. In my cases things were shipped quickly, it’s the transit time. I like to chalk it up to part of the price I pay for living in paradise.

I understand if it takes a long time for the shipping but that wasn't the case here. Those packages were sitting in the local post office with some bunch of lazy jokers ignoring them. I have several different people that run my delivery route. Most of them suck but the one regular girl was out for 2 days ( the two days that they didn't deliver at all) and she told me that they had not delivered anything except the magazines on one day and completely skipped over it the other day. Granted their pay may not be stellar but these people are getting federal benefits And it is next to impossible to fire them. Obviously it must be impossible to fire them otherwise they would do their job for fear of losing it.

You should look at what many post offices look like with packages lying all over the place. They have tens of thousands of employees on leave with covid and they don't hire seasonal workers like they used to years ago.

I'm waiting for a package that was mailed 7 days ago and shows received in the origination post office but not accepted yet. I'm also awaiting a UPS package that hit my local UPS office 6 days ago but hasn't been delivered and that's a 3 day air piece.

The situation is the same all over. My local UPS Office has guys in private cars delivering packages.

My package said delivered, yet is wasn't. By a substitute worker on my route.
I filed a case and jumped through all the hoops telling them My P O was the worst in the nation.
They sent me a conclusion which was tuff stuff....Sorry!

Got better service after that and my package showed a few weeks later.

After I had bought it again....

Well, people in my post office usually jump now once a case is filed. That probably has to do with the fact that I complained to my congressman. Now people think, "Oh yeah, complaining to your congressman huh? What is that going to do?" You'd be surprised what that will do. I would sometimes not see my mail delivery person for three or four days while the regular girl was on vacation. I complained to my congressman and within a couple of days I got a pile in my mailbox for inches thick.

I live in a large city. 500,000+ i believe. I have sent a card through the mail to across town and had it delivered the very next day. Blew my mind. Ive gotten mail from Denver that is 80 miles away and had it show up in two days. But at the same time ive mailed to Littleton. A small city next to Denver. And it took almost two weeks to make the trip as it went to Arazona first.

I dont understand why things happen the way they do at the post office. Ive had to wait 2 to 3 weeks to get packages that were mailed priority 3 day. Its a wonder the mail runs at all.

Mail within the UK has remained largely the same unaffected by COVID-19, including international mail, I received a few items from Japan in the last few months, they were all sent priority tracked and signed for, to my door from Japan within a week, on the other hand, the few items I sent to the USA via USPS priority tracked and signed for took much longer.

USPS does this sometimes. I have experienced this many times in the US part of the journey.
Imo if a package arrives at a hub point and there is not enough going to the next facility, it just sits there until enough packages have collected. Or perhaps certain connections are not busy enough and they only get moved once every 2 weeks.

These days I use DHL but I will speak up for the USPS in this matter: in all the years shipping with them, and the countless packages I have sent, they have never lost one of my blades. I have had several packages delayed mysteriously for 3 weeks or sometimes more (record was 5 or 6) but they all made it.

With this years record breaking shipping volumes I was expecting some delays over the holidays, and wasn’t disappointed.
2 items inbound have sat in ‘unexpected delay’ status for over a week, and one outbound is sitting in the same limbo. Not lost, but not delivered or moved along the route for some time.
Covid and year end holidays I presume, or hope..
Things should settle out over the next week if I’m lucky.