Asking about other USPS experiences. Or someone in the know.

[TheIntruder]

It seems our mail carrier experiences are quite different.

This is as YMMV a topic as there can be, with so many variables, local and regional, if not national, that will affect the experience, often only heard about if negative.

For the most part, the carriers that serve my area do a good job. I do get the occasional mis-delivery, and in the past have had magazine issues go missing (though the bills arrive 99% of the time), but on my route, the USPS consistently delivers the mail no later than the late PM, even with the temp fill-ins who have taken over the route from the retired long-time carrier.

Sunday Amazon deliveries have been made by both its own drivers, and on occasion USPS drivers.

Similarly, Amazon's tracking of its own carriers is very good, down to the number of stops away their driver is, though there is less intermediate detail than there used to be. But that could reflect the expanded nature of their internal logistics. Understandably, when they contract with the USPS, they have to rely on its tracking system, and don't have direct control over what the latter does, or information it conveys.

One tracking system that has turned noticeably for the for the worse is UPS', which lacks the detail it used to in the past, at least for a non-paying, non-registered user, and now carries a disclaimer that WYSIWYG, even for their own agents. If that's the case, then it's a downgrade for everyone.

The UPS tracking numbers for their Amazon return service lost any meaning a while ago, other than as a dropoff record, which is understandable since they're consolidated shipments, rather than individually shipped and tracked. But it's no big deal since Amazon often issues credits as soon as the chain of custody is in their hands.

FedEx is pretty good, though it helps to keep expectations in check for service from their Ground (nee RPS) division.

Such complaints will get no sympathy from those who have bought from Aliexpress, or other overseas sources. The variables and uncertainties in those shipments only compounded by the fact that the USPS, or another obscure local last-mile carrier is one of the parties involved. Those shipments arrive when they arrive, and patience is mandatory.

 

[Herdfan]

No offense to you, but what you describe is a primary reason that I hated rural living as a teenager. I knew, because I attended school in the city, that things could be acquired much faster than through the mail if I could just get to a store. Radio Shack, the comic book store, Waldenbooks, B. Dalton, KB Toys, the Mall! But all of that was 30 mins away by car and until I turned 16 (September 1986) I had no car to get there. I was entirely reliant on my parents good moods and my father rarely had any good mood to go anywhere on a weekend.

At 16 life opened up and I was no longer reliant on waiting for stuff in the mail. Of course, if a store didn't have it I did have to wait, but chances were they did. Now, at 53, Walmart is visited at least 4-5 times a week, sometimes 2-3 times in a day. Because they have stuff. eBay or Amazon is simply for the stuff I can't get in store.

And again, no offense. But I will NEVER return to rural living. I got out, moved to a large city (Phoenix, AZ) and good riddance to rural.

I get it. I grew up in a small town 20-30 minutes from the two biggest cities. So as a little kid, I hated going to the city because it meant shopping for clothes with mom. Hated that. When I turned 13, a mall opened up 10 minutes from the house and that was a game changer. A parent could drop us off and we would be fine for the rest of the day. The mall was simply an exit off the interstate, so we weren't going anywhere.

Over time, other stores opened in my old hometown and I moved about 10 miles closer to one of the cities. So I was 20 minutes to one city and 20 minutes to the mall. So I could get where I needed to fairly quickly. I would rather drive 20 minutes on a highway with the cruise control set vs 20 minutes in a city where I only go 3 miles and have multiple stoplights. And traffic.

I am still semi-rural, but the WalMart, Fry's and Home Depot are less than 5 minutes away, but we have to go to Prescott or Flag if we want a chain restaurant. But we have lots of great local places to eat here, so I can do without Olive Garden or Outback.

 

[eyoungren]

I get it. I grew up in a small town 20-30 minutes from the two biggest cities. So as a little kid, I hated going to the city because it meant shopping for clothes with mom. Hated that. When I turned 13, a mall opened up 10 minutes from the house and that was a game changer. A parent could drop us off and we would be fine for the rest of the day. The mall was simply an exit off the interstate, so we weren't going anywhere.

Over time, other stores opened in my old hometown and I moved about 10 miles closer to one of the cities. So I was 20 minutes to one city and 20 minutes to the mall. So I could get where I needed to fairly quickly. I would rather drive 20 minutes on a highway with the cruise control set vs 20 minutes in a city where I only go 3 miles and have multiple stoplights. And traffic.

I am still semi-rural, but the WalMart, Fry's and Home Depot are less than 5 minutes away, but we have to go to Prescott or Flag if we want a chain restaurant. But we have lots of great local places to eat here, so I can do without Olive Garden or Outback.

The area I lived in (Cherry Valley, California) from 1980 to 2000 was (and still is) a bedroom community. Banning and Beaumont are neighboring incorporated towns, while CV still gets services from Riverside County.

So, I got the small town attitude first where everyone is suspicious of everyone else and the sidewalks are rolled up at 5pm (if there are sidewalks). Then in 1990 the new mayor of Beaumont starts snapping up southern parts of Cherry Valley without so much as a please. She just rammed annexation through the Beaumont City Council. So, I learned small town politics at that point as well. She was later caught cooking the books during a political run for office in the late 90s/early 00s and had to sign a document that said she would never run for political office ever again. That was the only out she had to escape prosecution.

In the early to mid-00s the entire Beaumont City Council was caught pushing contracts to favored businesses that they all had controlling interest in. Millions of dollars involved in that (new interchange for I-10 and US 60 in Beaumont) and most of them went to jail.

We did have food chains, mostly in Banning when I was a kid. We even had a Naugles. But it meant convincing my parents to go there. Once I had a car, there were far better places down in Redlands/San Bernardino. Limited grocery options (Stater Bros, Alpha Beta, that was it). In 1990, Albertsons came in at Sun Lakes south of the 10 and by 1996 I think, the Food4Less had come in. Same building that had been K-Mart originally, and then a Hometown Square (home improvement store).

Starbucks coming in 1999 was monumental. They took over the old Wendys in Banning. But by that point my wife and I (living in the area at the time) were getting out. The irony is that once we left, people from Orange County found out about the Pass Area and there was a housing boom. Which meant shops, chains, and all the kinds of things there were not there in the 1980s and early 1990s.

That's okay. I'm good with where we landed as it's been way better all the way around. There are still some places in that area I miss because they were good places, most of them gone now but a few left. However, dealing with all the small town BS and greedy, closed minded thinking politics is one part of the reason I will never go back.

But the mail service was good! Always reliable. Of course that was the 80s and 90s, so who knows now.

 

[romanof]

Once again. Just got the message, "Delivery attempted: Unfortunately, USPS couldn't complete your Amazon delivery. They'll try again."
Sunday delivery just will not work out here in the sticks, for whatever reason.

 

[Herdfan]

But my daughter just celebrated 20 years in NYC, she moved there right after college.

Mine is about to complete 2 years in Los Angeles. She hates it and loves it at the same time. She hates the traffic and the prices, but loves the fact that she can see bands and comedians and other entertainment almost any night she wants.

I suspect as long as she keeps getting raises, she will stay, but once she starts to max out, she will return to the east coast, probably Savannah where she went to college.

 

[Ledsteplin]

Once again. Just got the message, "Delivery attempted: Unfortunately, USPS couldn't complete your Amazon delivery. They'll try again."
Sunday delivery just will not work out here in the sticks, for whatever reason.

Me either. I live in a high rise apartment 10 stories up. Our building is locked on weekends. So most just don't deliver, even though they have my phone number I entered in their app. But USPS has a box and can get in.

 

[okkibs]

Our building is locked on weekends. So most just don't deliver, even though they have my phone number I entered in their app.

The delivery couriers are under time pressure and sacrificing their weekend (i.e. very few people who have a choice willingly give away the only 1-2 days off work). I have an agreement with one I know for a while that I will sprint down the stairs when he calls but usually the van's already long gone by the time I reach the door and the package is on the ground. Literally every second counts for them.

Complain to the sender and if you paid extra for a weekend delivery option then demand that money back. I understand that will usually be futile but maybe you realize that you are being offered a service that the seller/sender/retailer cannot guarantee/provide and it ends up forcing the poorest people in our society to do back-breaking labor on weekends.

We customers lose, waiting for a package that doesn't arrive based on promises everyone knows won't be fulfilled, the actual people doing the work lose sacrificing their physical and mental health based on some manglement people saying "let's claim we deliver on weekends, that will boost our sales! who cares if half the deliveries fail! good enough!".

From this perspective it must become clear that we shouldn't want weekend deliveries, period. Sadly we don't get a choice. The system would work much better if weekend deliveries were always optional with a small surcharge for when you actually really need it and then it could even reliably work with the lower workload placed on the couriers.

 

[eyoungren]

Today I had a Sunday USPS delivery. Go figure. It was sent UPS Surepost, which means USPS goes the final mile. I'm guessing there's some sort of guarantee that a delivery that falls on Sunday has to happen because my wife found the package on the doorstep when she went outside. This wasn't Amazon though, eBay.

 

[Herdfan]

Speaking of eBay, when we were packing up to move, there was some stuff we know we didn't want, but it has enough value to try and sell. So I have been going through the boxes and putting it on eBay.

I had the smart thermostats from my mom's house, just a pair of Honeywell's. Got an offer and took it, but didn't really pay attention. Shipped them and everything was fine. I do watch for my sales to be delivered and this one was a week out and not delivered to IL.

So I tracked it and found out it was being shipped to S Korea, but I was only responsible to IL. And only paid for it to go to IL.

So eBay must have some way of getting packages from a hub in IL to other parts of the world.

 

[eyoungren]

Speaking of eBay, when we were packing up to move, there was some stuff we know we didn't want, but it has enough value to try and sell. So I have been going through the boxes and putting it on eBay.

I had the smart thermostats from my mom's house, just a pair of Honeywell's. Got an offer and took it, but didn't really pay attention. Shipped them and everything was fine. I do watch for my sales to be delivered and this one was a week out and not delivered to IL.

So I tracked it and found out it was being shipped to S Korea, but I was only responsible to IL. And only paid for it to go to IL.

So eBay must have some way of getting packages from a hub in IL to other parts of the world.

eBay has it's own internal shipping service. Because it's internal though, you (the seller) never see it. It probably went through that. Slow as heck though.

I once purchased a pair of Dickie's shorts, black carpenter. These are sold through Walmart, so the 'Genuine Dickies' label which is a cheaper brand that Dickies offers to Walmart. But Dickies themselves does not actually make shorts like that for retail sale outside of Walmart so this makes them popular and hard to find. eBay usually makes up for this and I've found a pair or two through the service.

This time around though, because the seller was not paying attention, they sent my shorts to China and sent ME a box full of Happy Meal toys!!!!! It should have been the other way around! But it was too late to recall the shorts. I sent the toys back and got a full refund, but somewhere in China is somebody wearing my Dickies shorts!!!!

The seller's excuse was that these (the shorts) were difficult to find. I have no idea what that has to do with the mistake of shipping my item to China, but YEAH…it's because they are hard to find that I bought them from someone selling them on eBay! And then they sent them off to China!

SMH!

 

[Mousse]

eBay has it's own internal shipping service. Because it's internal though, you (the seller) never see it. It probably went through that. Slow as heck though.

They must have used that knock-off outfit that styles itself as FedEx and UPS combined. We call them FedUP.😏

 

[GrayFlannel]

I see delivery dates as general suggestions/recommendations which is how I see traffic control devices.

 

[Herdfan]

I see delivery dates as general suggestions/recommendations which is how I see traffic control devices.

You mean like Speed Limit signs? 😂

 

[GrayFlannel]

You mean like Speed Limit signs? 😂

😊 And turn lanes and red lights.