I must just have been blessed (which I am sure will now go away) but I rarely have these sort of shipping issues with any carrier. Items ordered priority mail usually show up in the stated 2-3 days, unless its over a weekend. Regular packages (First class etc) are generally inside the window advertised as well. So while I can intellectually grasp the frustration, its just never been a thing for me.
That explains it. I once bought something on FeePay that was in Atlanta. The seller used USPS t send it. It took a week to get out of the Atlanta Metropolitan Area.. Once it actually did get out of Atlanta, it took two days to get to Washington and one more to get to my door step.
Tell me about it. I had a package from Los Angeles tracked to the Houston distribution center and then just dropped out of site for three weeks. Finally arrived all beat up but the contents were okay.
Living in upper mid west Texas we have had several packages go thru Dallas to us. Deb is still waiting for a package that came from Maine That shipped out two years ago. I lost two coal cars i wanted and they got lost somewhere between Wisconsin and here. We are friends with the postal lady who brings us our mail. She said I have been lucky i got most of my orders from New Mexico because priority mail is trucked to us direct. Man i am glad mike is there where he is!!! I got another order that is coming to me from Kato in Japan.They are saying it will get here by April 15th. Its ok, I am in no rush as i have some medical issues to try and take care of. USPS in one word just sucks here
And new neighborhoods no longer have even curbside mailboxes. My son's neighborhood (all separate, single-family homes with full yards) has a central mailbox facility where everyone goes to get their mail, with larger packages in bigger lockers. He goes by there daily while walking his dog anyway. My mailbox is at the curb in front of our house, and packages are left on the front porch. My chihuahua recognizes the sound of the mail vehicle stopping at our box, and he goes berserk, even if there are no packages for the porch, so we get an automatic delivery alarm.
At my last house the mailboxes were at you enter the sub and as it grew another was added mid way. Nice! Then forced out. Now apartment in Neenah with tiny wall boxes in the lobby. Single families have curb side rural boxes.
I'm still amazed by modern transit times when things go right. On Thursday I ordered some scenery supplies from a shop in the Chicago area (my LHS didn't carry what I needed) and it will deliver to the Carolinas today, Saturday, all by UPS Gound.
A couple years ago I couldn't find some things at Walmart. They had just started the email order system with different delivery systems. I said I would pick it up. They told me in a couple days that they did. But one item arrived by hand within 30 minutes from groceries. Right now I have an order not yet delivered. The order was placed in October. And the arrival keeps getting postponed. I ordered the one item from AMAZON and got it in two days. Not 5 months.
Hi C&O Mountain Man, Sorry to hear of your issues. I would suggest filling out a missing mail forum on the USPS web site. I've heard all the horror stories and I guess I'm the lucky one as 99% of everything I receive via the USPS arrives on time and in most cases a day early. Now I did have one shipment sent from Florida that arrived at my regional distribution center and then just disappeared. It was to be delivered on a Monday and when there were no further updates and no package by Wednesday, I filled out the missing mail forum on the USPS web site. I received a reply Thursday and received my package Saturday. Sometimes you have to stir the pot a little. You know the old saying, the squeaky wheel gets oiled. As for real horror stories, I'm sorry, but I'll never use UPS again. I've had three packages delivered by UPS and all three were damaged. When I contacted UPS, I was told the sender had to file a claim. Luckily for me, the person who sent me the packages was willing to make it right. They also switched their default shipping from UPS to USPS, so I must have not been the only one having these issues. Again it might just be my area, like the poor folks in the Atlanta area having problems with the Post Office. There are probably folks in other parts of the country that have good luck with UPS, just not me.
Many years ago I had a good friend that owned a hobby shop and he called UPS "United Particle Service" because so many of his inbound shipments arrived crushed with damage to what was inside.
Click. That’s the sound of a stopwatch, tracking my delivery time. USPS sez my order is out for delivery today. We’ll see. We’ll see if everything arrives intact, as well. (130 ft turntable in the order, among other things; I’m less than optimistic). The tale of the timepiece right now: 40 days since order placement: 24 days since last positive location update in tracking. 15 days from order placement to seller shipping (Located in Auburn, GA - I’ll bet they had to wait on stuff to be shipped through Atlanta, too)
You know, I don’t think I’ve waited so long for delivery of anything since I was a kid and the days of ”send in six box tops of cocoa puffs and $3.00 for YOUR working submarine! Wait 6-8 weeks for delivery.” And wait that long, you did. And that dang submarine WORKED, too! (Skipjack class, red & white, maybe 10” long, maybe a foot) Took it to sinks, bathtub, swimming hole, pool. Looking back, that dern thing was worth both the wait AND the money! *It’s been decades since even remembering that thing! Today’s a good day just for that memory coming to mind alone!
Yep MountianMan, I remember those days well! But unlike you, my purchases didn't always turn out so well. At least I never fell for "amazing sea monkeys"!
Growing up living in such exotic places as Okinawa, Philippines and Guam and having an address that said APO San Francisco, California had its own challenges. Packages came by boat and took for ever, many times beat up and pulverized. I ordered a 25 gallon aquarium and in spite of including extra funds and instructions for rugged packaging it arrived in a simple cardboard box, Every glass panel was broken. Wrote back with a detailed description of how it arrived and again specified a new one to be sent well protected. Same song, second verse. Gave up and ordered a tube of silicon sealant and bought some glass from a local vendor, cut to size to mount in the stainless steel frame. After many many months, I finally was able to stock it with some fish that I captured in the local lagoons.
It's not just the delivery service. A few days ago I ordered one item. Yesterday they said all three will be delivered in separate packages, If I only want one I can return the other two - at my expense. I also place an order with another major firm and one item did come. But no reason given. With three contacts, email and phone, I think I may be getting the missing item. And junk phone calls and emails is getting awesome. It fun living in such a fine Democracy. Isn't it!
Well, around 4:00pm, it did arrive. The supplier didn't put it everything a bulletproof box, but it held up well enough for having spent a month on the lam, and everything is intact. The old-fashioned C&O boxcar’s jewel box is so solid, that the little box would have to be crushed for the car to take any damage. The Walther’s turntable likewise is in an impressively sturdy box of its own. The BLI boxcar twin-pack is not so robustly packaged, but survived well in the ocean of packing peanuts in the big box. Pleased to get my stuff, not so pleased with the US Postal Service’s overall performance. Except for the postmaster at my local office. After submitting a ticket online, he personally called me the next day, confirmed what I researched in the news about the Atlanta distribution centers and personnel, and said since the problem began, that our local post office gets sent stuff from Atlanta only on Tuesdays (if they get anything from Atlanta at all), and it’s generally a big bunch of stuff, because Atlanta’s backlog is so massive. Well, he nailed that prediction.
Know exactly what you mean 'bout USPS I've had packages track close, just next "process center" over, just to have it get "rerouted" and only arriving days later . .
