It is 'Their' season.....bah humbug!!

[ReigntheGamer]

DATE & TIME
STATUS OF ITEM
LOCATION

December 14, 2014 , 8:52 am
Arrived at Hub
LA PORTE, TX 77571
Arrived at USPS Facility

NORTH HOUSTON, TX 77315
December 13, 2014 , 10:14 am
Arrived at USPS Facility

HOUSTON, TX 77201
December 11, 2014 , 9:36 am
Arrived at USPS Facility

ROSENBERG, TX 77471
December 11, 2014 , 9:15 am
Out for Delivery

ROSENBERG, TX 77471
December 11, 2014 , 9:05 am
Sorting Complete

ROSENBERG, TX 77471
December 8, 2014 , 5:59 pm
Arrived at USPS Facility

DALLAS, TX 75398
December 3, 2014 , 1:52 am
Arrived at USPS Origin Facility

PHILADELPHIA, PA 19116
December 2, 2014 , 2:18 pm
Shipping Label Created

BANGOR, PA 18013
December 2, 2014 , 1:48 pm
Picked up by Request

BANGOR, PA 18013
December 2, 2014
Pre-Shipment Info Sent to USPS

I do not have the words to describe the incompetence of the USPS.

 

[Steamix]

I'm not sure what the problem is. The mail gets routed in ways no human could ever understand...

No surprise here, humans play a dwindling role in working out routings. See the 'travelling salesman/woman problem'

Latest is mimicking foraging ants digitally to optimize the network as a whole. And the 'internet of things' isn't much different there. Data or real packages - sometimes one wonders about the crazy routes. But on the whole, it keeps the postage down.

Which is a good thing, as not all of us happen to have a butler or personal courier handy to pick up our gear

 

[BlueCanary]

Nearly 3 days with no update. Scheduled to be delivered by tomorrow. If it isn't I'm calling to PO. I'm usually not to anxious/worried but its a rather expensive purchase at a hectic time of year and I've never had something that shipped across the entire country without a single update for 3 consecutive days.

If you ordered from eCiggity…that is what my tracking looked like as well. Once it left Hawaii, it didn't get scanned in again until it arrived in North Carolina, so there were several days without an update. Admittedly, I'm having a problem, but it was on my local post office's end, so hopefully you are good and your stuff will be delivered like it is supposed to be.

 

[sos2001]

Day 8 still waiting on a package mailed on the 2nd, has been sitting in Dallas for two days now about 6 hours away from me. Was on the phone with their so called "CS" which was absolutely no help at all. I politely remarked that I would just hope it would be here by the weekend and you know what (exact words) in the other and see which filled up first. They laughed heartily and then asked if there was something else they could help me with. I sure wish more vape companies would offer other shipping options than these goofballs, all of my Amazon stuff shipped via UPS or FedEx arrives on time or early. And I am sure they would claim it's the weather impacting delivery except it has been in the 60-70's near here and Dallas the last few days.

Texas has been a freaking black hole all month. I ordered from a Dallas area vendor early Friday morning, it's sitting in preshipment mode now going on three days...ordered from Washington State vendor overnight Saturday, and it will be here Wednesday. The Texas vendor says it has shipped, but no activity since Friday. The tracking on the Washington order shows the package moving through the system.

 

[lownote2]

I hear you. I ordered some kanthal off Amazon last week. I'm a prime member. It had the option to "upgrade" to 2 day shipping for free so I of course checked that option. It sat around, moved a bit, sat some more, and 5 days later arrived. For $5 I didn't bother complaining.

 

[ReigntheGamer]

Texas has been a freaking black hole all month. I ordered from a Dallas area vendor early Friday morning, it's sitting in preshipment mode now going on three days...ordered from Washington State vendor overnight Saturday, and it will be here Wednesday. The Texas vendor says it has shipped, but no activity since Friday. The tracking on the Washington order shows the package moving through the system.

Well I finally got the package today, hey from the 2nd till the 15th not a bad turnaround. /sarcasm off

 

[AndriaD]

Grr….I ordered two more isticks from eCiggity on the 10th. They shipped on the 11th, and I paid the extra 5.75 to get "two to three day priority" shipping…so the delivery estimate was Saturday or Monday. According to the USPS tracking website on Saturday, my delivery estimate was today, Monday the 15th. The package arrived from Hawaii to my local sorting center (otherwise known as The Magical Place Where Any Idiot Can Apparently Find A Job Making 18 Bucks An Hour) on Sunday morning. Then, according to USPS.com, it was sent from there to my local post office, due to be delivered this morning.

Except, I get there, and there is no package. I give them my tracking information, and am told that my package has been "mis-sorted" to the wrong post office. And no, I can't go there and pick it up, I have to wait till tomorrow to see if the precious darlings can manage to send it back to the "hub" where it will then supposedly be sent to the CORRECT post office this time. Might be a couple of days, according to the clerk, because "they are super busy this time of year." No s---.

She assured me that it would be redelivered, and not returned to eCiggity, but who the heck knows? I run two businesses that involve shipping items to customers. Do you know how often I have to give refunds because of this crap? Way too often. You'd think that the post office, whose job is delivering the mail, could actually deliver the mail, but in many cases you would be wrong. And then they can't imagine why everyone thinks they are incompetent, why the post office is hemorrhaging money, and why so many people are in favor of doing away with the USPS altogether. 9 times out of 10, the clerks that I deal with at my local branch, who have worked there at least the 10 years I have lived here, are so brain-dead that I have to watch what they are doing when they are ringing up my packages to be mailed, because if I didn't catch them doing something stupid like putting the wrong barcode on the wrong package I would have even more unhappy customers whose items ended up 300 miles away from where they were supposed to be, never to be seen again.

I completely, wholeheartedly agree. I'm strongly in favor of including an IQ test with the usual postal exam, and only those who test over 130 should be accepted, because of those currently employed by the USPS, at least 75% seem to be at sub-idiot level. Maybe they should be paid by how quickly they can get pkgs from place to place -- if they're slow because, hey, they just DON'T CARE, then they don't make anything at all -- that would light a fire under them! With that sort of pay scheme, most of the USPS employees in FL would be going hungry, and they damn well should, as lackadaisical as they are.

Andria

 

[slyphex]

I live in Alaska and usually shipping is 1-2 days longer than you would expect, (e.g., 3 day shipping is usually 4 and a weekend is 5). I ordered some juice from CA last year and it was a big bottle and I wanted it quicker so I picked FedEx and paid $13 in shipping.

The seller shipped it via FedEx parcel pool or the equivalent, where FedEx picks it up and drops it off at the post office and the actual mail transport is handled by the USPS. It took 28 days to get to my house. It went from CA to WA back to CA and each time it wasn't updated for a week.

When I finally received it the package was incredibly damaged and the bottle was broken and had leaked all over the rest of my stuff. The seller graciously resent the order via FedEx overnight and I got it in short order.

Still mad the USPS. They have lost or broken or misdelivered an obscene number of my packages.

 

[K_Tech]

This is the current status of all my packages that have allegedly been shipped since December 4th.:

PRE-SHIPMENT
NOT FOUND
IN-TRANSIT
NOT FOUND
NOT FOUND

I wanted to "like" your post, but I don't like it. Ugh. What a mess.

 

[Moaufan]

Yeah, I shipped something I sold in the classies I think last Monday...Priority! As of yesterday it was in Philadelphia. The recipient lives in Atlanta

Good luck with the Georgia mail system. I watched a mod bounce between 2 sort facilities Midland and Columbus for 5 days and they are about 5 miles apart and 30 mi. from my POB. I finally got my Postmaster involved and It went to Atlanta 175 mi. from my POB to Macon 90 mi. away. It sat there for 2 more days before landing in my POB. The sad thing is it was shipped from Tallahassee, Fl. Nine days to travel 200 miles. That's absurd!! What really gets my goat is the commercial where they are patting themselves on the back for a job well done. Really makes me want to go postal.....

 

[AndriaD]

Yeah, I shipped something I sold in the classies I think last Monday...Priority! As of yesterday it was in Philadelphia. The recipient lives in Atlanta

Good luck with the Georgia mail system. I watched a mod bounce between 2 sort facilities Midland and Columbus for 5 days and they are about 5 miles apart and 30 mi. from my POB. I finally got my Postmaster involved and It went to Atlanta 175 mi. from my POB to Macon 90 mi. away. It sat there for 2 more days before landing in my POB. The sad thing is it was shipped from Tallahassee, Fl. Nine days to travel 200 miles. That's absurd!! What really gets my goat is the commercial where they are patting themselves on the back for a job well done. Really makes me want to go postal.....

They're not *too* bad up here, usually; if it gets to anyplace in ATL by evening or at night, they can *usually* manage to get it to Lawrenceville in time for the next day's mail. But sometimes they make me want to jerk them out of the truck and go rummaging thru it myself!

Andria

 

[faeriekitsune]

The whole thread just makes me sad. My next door neighbor is a driver for a company contracted to haul mail. He picks up a big rig in D.C.and drops the load in southern VA, then picks up a new load for the return trip five days a week.

On the occasion he's hanging out having a beer, he tells stories of the stupid crap he sees at work. Like the sorting center postal workers too lazy to unload the mail from the truck. They deliberately fart around so the drivers get impatient and unload it themselves even though they're not supposed to. Or like when the trucks are backed up three deep on the ramps, so people are literally flinging crates of mail off the truck into the delivery bay to get trucks out of the way as fast as possible.

I prefer anything I buy to be shipped UPS or FedEx, but even FedEx isn't safe anymore. They have this new method (that a lot of companies won't mention they're using, they just say they're using FedEx) where FedEx is the initial shipper but once your package hits the sorting center nearest you, they hand your box over to USPS for the final delivery steps.

Of course, I've also had UPS deliver an opened (and empty!) package and insist that it wasn't tampered with even though I watched the guy deliver it and caught him before he managed to get back in his truck. Included invoices for the win on that one. I used to run a home business as well, and referred to UPS as "United Package Smashers". Out of every ten supply deliveries, I had to send about 4 back as the boxes looked like a tiger turned it into a chew toy. Kinda irritating to come home to a $500 shipment sorting on my porch leaking fluids everywhere and everything else in the box ruined from the liquids.

....conclusion? All shippers suck on occasion, USPS more than most. Somebody needs to invent matter transference deliveries. Box it up, stick it in the teleporter, it shows up in your delivery bin.

Until then, I agree with AndriaD. All USPS workers should be paid based on how well they do their jobs. We have a running joke around here that the best job is working for the post office but you have to wait for somebody to die for an opening. Lifers at good pay with the postal worker's union being what it is equals a lot of workers who don't give a crap.

 

[AndriaD]

Until then, I agree with AndriaD. All USPS workers should be paid based on how well they do their jobs. We have a running joke around here that the best job is working for the post office but you have to wait for somebody to die for an opening. Lifers at good pay with the postal worker's union being what it is equals a lot of workers who don't give a crap.

That's the #1 improvement the USPS could possibly make, being paid solely on how quickly they can get a pkg someplace, and if at any point, it gets shipped someplace it had no reason to go, a 10% cut in all the employees' pay who helped it get there -- they'd pay more attention to the scanning that way!

If they were paid on performance and docked for stupidity and/or sheer laziness, they'd ALL do a MUCH better job, and we could actually have a postal svc we could depend on.

I ordered some flavors from bullcityvapor last night; they're in NC, I'm in GA, not too far apart at all. NORMALLY, I can get pkgs from them in about 2 days, even at std 1st class rates. This week, I will feel extremely lucky if I get it by Friday. They do a really weird thing though; I got an email that my order's status had been updated, so I clicked the tracking number. It said that a shipping label had been created, at 5:35pm... but I got the email at 12:35pm...

No updates since then. I guess they're trying to think it here.

Andria

 

[ProjektMayhem]

Yeah USPS isn't the best option to use for shipping. Although everything that I have ordered in the last week with USPS Priority mail has got here right on time so I can't say I know your pain.

 

[nyiddle]

I hear you. I ordered some kanthal off Amazon last week. I'm a prime member. It had the option to "upgrade" to 2 day shipping for free so I of course checked that option. It sat around, moved a bit, sat some more, and 5 days later arrived. For $5 I didn't bother complaining.

Worth mentioning (even though it's only 5 bucks) you're entitled to get your money back if they offer 2-day guaranteed shipping and it doesn't arrive in 2 days.

It's a little hassle, but Amazon is pretty good about giving your money back in unfair circumstances. I bought a product, and the description was for a different product. I contacted the seller, and they didn't respond, so I contacted Amazon who gave the seller 2 days to respond. They didn't, so Amazon sent me my money back, and (gratis) requested that the seller re-ship the product that I thought I was buying. I offered to send the incorrect product back, but they told me to keep it (40$ value). They also took down the listing with the incorrect product description.

I've also had situations where I ordered 2-day shipping and it came in a full 5. I gave them a slight huff and said, "If I knew it'd take 5 days, I would've gone with free shipping." They promptly gave me back my 6$ or whatever it was.

Just so you guys know! It may only be 5$, but that's 5$ that you could be putting towards your next vape purchase! Don't get taken for a ride!

 

[Lanore]

And it didn't arrive today, and still no update on shipping since it left Honolulu 3 days ago. It was 3 day shipping, and it has been 3 business days, but in fairness it is actually traveling across the world during the Holidays. I'll wait till tomorrow and if it doesn't come, and there is no update on the tracking, I'll be calling them. I can understand delayed delivery (even though I paid extra) but no tracking updates is inexcusable at all. For all I know it fell off the plane/boat and is sitting in the middle of the ocean.

 

[nyiddle]

And it didn't arrive today, and still no update on shipping since it left Honolulu 3 days ago. It was 3 day shipping, and it has been 3 business days, but in fairness it is actually traveling across the world during the Holidays. I'll wait till tomorrow and if it doesn't come, and there is no update on the tracking, I'll be calling them. I can understand delayed delivery (even though I paid extra) but no tracking updates is inexcusable at all. For all I know it fell off the plane/boat and is sitting in the middle of the ocean.

FedEx truck overturns on New Jersey highway, spills packages - NY Daily News

 

[AndriaD]

That is just appalling, nyiddle. Apparently they're now hiring chimps to drive their trucks.

Finally see some activity on the tracking for my flavors, and I'm pleased to see that somebody in the PO in Durham, NC, actually did something right for a change -- instead of sending it to Raleigh as they usually do -- which is actually farther away from Atlanta, not closer! -- they sent it to Greensboro, which is actually closer to Atlanta, AND right on the I-85 corridor. 3 cheers for competent routing!

Andria

 

[Robino1]

FedEx truck overturns on New Jersey highway, spills packages - NY Daily News

We saw that on the news. Hubby said one of my Christmas presents was coming from Philly. Hmmmm
I hate to blame the truck driver though. I have seen cars that force truckers to do some serious maneuvers just to avoid killing someone.

When you see a sign that says truckers can only see you if you see their mirror, it is the truth. Not saying this trucker was at fault or not. Just that they deserve some respect on the road. That's a lot of weight they are carrying behind them. They are also probably feeling the pressure to deliver the products in a certain time frame.

Compassion goes a long way.

 

[AndriaD]

We saw that on the news. Hubby said one of my Christmas presents was coming from Philly. Hmmmm
I hate to blame the truck driver though. I have seen cars that force truckers to do some serious maneuvers just to avoid killing someone.

When you see a sign that says truckers can only see you if you see their mirror, it is the truth. Not saying this trucker was at fault or not. Just that they deserve some respect on the road. That's a lot of weight they are carrying behind them. They are also probably feeling the pressure to deliver the products in a certain time frame.

Compassion goes a long way.

That is the truth -- I've seen cars pull out right in front of big ol trucks on a downhill grade... Where's karma when it's really needed?!

I try to give those big boys as wide a berth as I possibly can -- they scare the bejeebers out of me, and yeah, they have a very hard job -- my husband used to do in-town truck driving; not a semi, but the biggest one below that, what he called a 'straight truck.' He often told me of the stupidity he saw from cars who have no clue how destructive even those kinds of trucks can be.

Plus the fact that if the worst happens with those big trucks, they leave a big mess everywhere, like in that pic or even worse, if they happen to be carrying liquids. Recently there was a big truck wreckcident here in ATL, and one of those semis was jack-knifed right across all the lanes of 75 or 85, I forget which it was -- that traffic jam was ungodly, miles and miles and miles, while they tried to get that big honkin truck off the road.

Andria