USPS - The Evil Empire

[richberstler]

Really? Seriously! Really? The USPS can lose my package and not care less about it. How are they not held responsible for packages they admit were not delivered to the correct address. In the meantime I have to suck up my hard earned money and reorder what they admit to losing. ---- THIS IS A RANT AND CALL TO ARMS ----

I want to call the police. A substitute carrier "misdelivered" the most expensive package of everything I ordered. Nobody can find it. Screw that. I've been suspect of the whole USPS since Amazon started using their services a couple years back. I would not be surprised if it was stolen by the carrier.

I work from home, so I KNOW when someone delivers from UPS, FEDX. One knock and I'm there. I only work a few feet from my front door. USPS always just left packages in front of my house, never a knock, and I always knew it would be a problem. BUT... Ordering from a huge company like Amazon and the fact they shipped 'but' USPS I felt safe. Even if UPS etc subcontracted USPS I always got replacement without question if they lost something. And you all know we can't expect these small vape businesses to have the same protection.

So this community is mostly stuck with USPS or expensive shipping costs. I say how can we affect the USPS to be better without calling attention to our 'big tobacco cure' and keep the FDA/ATF out of making 'ignorant' decisions. In a better way, how can we make our post offices in USA actually functionable? Is anyone really surprised the post office is bankrupt????? Guarantee a package or get out of the business.

I am really curious about other's opinions on this. I will never understand a business model that says "we will get you your mail, mostly"

 

[1990FOXBODY]

I hate that they lost such an important package for you.....but I love USPS. I order between 100 and 400 packages for my work every week and the ones that are delivered by USPS or FED-Ex are the best too me. I ESPECIALLY like that they deliver on Saturday, so if I get home on Friday and no vape mail then I got one more day. UPS has it's place for me as they are the cheapest on the really large stuff(over 50 lbs). Anyway, I hope you get your stuff.....or at least reimbursed.

 

[jow350]

Buyer beware! That's why I upgrade shipping if I order something I can't afford to loose... I don't quite understand how they can operate like that, but then again, what do you expect for getting a box shipped across the country for a couple of bucks when UPS and FedEx charge over $10 (and can take sometimes considerably longer for ground shipping).

 

[Laythor]

There's a reason the postal service is losing money hand over fist, poor delivery is just one of the reasons. For the last month our postal carrier has been delivering mail to whichever house she feels like. It has helped everyone on the block get to know each other better but even after repeated talks to the mail carrier nothing changed until a dozen of us filed complaints.

 

[FlamingoTutu]

I feel for you, I really, really do but that's why I upgrade on the expensive stuff. I hope the package has been returned to sender and they will remail it to you. That's happened to us more than once. Good luck.

 

[richberstler]

No luck like that here. My mail carrier is a decent guy, but this is the breaking point on my experience of the past few years. How can any company express ownership of the failure to perform and then not back that up by making the problem right. I paid USPS to take $113 of my money. NOT ACCEPTABLE

 

[BigBen2k]

You need to... have a puff... calm down ...then contact your vendor, who will, in turn, contact USPS.

It's not rocket science, and it happens to everyone.

 

[richberstler]

Thinks about it. Does someone pay you insurance that you'll do your job correctly?

 

[richberstler]

You need to... have a puff... calm down ...then contact your vendor, who will, in turn, contact USPS.

It's not rocket science, and it happens to everyone.

That's my point. It's not rocket science and it does happen to everyone. Does that have to be the norm? I don't make much and my money is important. I'm held responsible for any mistakes I make at work, so should they. That's my only point.

 

[athousandyears]

I, too, get pretty frustrated with USPS. Just today they delivered a package of mine to a post office about 4 hours away from here. Luckily it was priority mail and insured. I was able to track it and call that post office to make sure it was being returned to the sorting center. Hopefully, I'll get it in the next day or two.

 

[articus]

Amazon will reship it for free, call them.

 

[Kellycat]

I'm no lawyer, but I'm fairly familiar with USPS policy as I've used them as a shipping carrier exclusively when it comes to a small business (non-ecig-related) I used to run. If the sender does not pay for insurance at the time of mailing or the time of printing electronic postage for an item, it is the sender's responsibility to replace any lost/damaged/mis-delivered items. If the sender did purchase insurance, it becomes USPS's problem, you contact the sender, the sender files a claim, USPS will investigate (depending on if it was loss, damage, or what specifically it could take over a week, lame, yes, but better than nothing) and the sender will be reimbursed for the insured value of the package, at which time, in the case of a business, they will use that reimbursement to send you a replacement item at no charge.

I tend to see on a lot of ecig sites that insurance is optional, which is fine for small stuff, but if you forget to add the insurance 'item' (this is absurdly stupid, again, most sites offer it as an option at checkout which is far better) then you're pretty much SOL. If you really spent $100+ from a reputable ecig vendor, I would have expected insurance to be a freebie they included to protect themselves as much as you. I highly suggest contacting your vendor and finding out if the package was insured, first class mail CAN be insured to the best of my knowledge, so just because it was sent 1st class doesn't mean you're out the money if you paid for insurance and/or the sender purchased it at the time of shipping. If you paid the company for insurance and they failed to insure, it's their problem, they should be sending you a replacement at their cost. If you paid for insurance and they did insure it as they should, USPS will reimburse them after a time, but they should still re-ship immediately or nearly immediately once you can prove the item was mis-delivered or lost in the system.

 

[B1sh0p]

My god, the entitlement of some people. The USPS delivers millions of packages a day and it's dirt cheap. They're bound to lose a few. I'm sorry your package was lost, but get a grip, man.

 

[IMFire3605]

This is not the only issue I have with the USPS ever since they started downsizing. Clearly, they need to step up their prices to pay for the manpower and facilities to keep up with the times, or get out of the picture entirely. When I was growing up, the USPS used to be fast, reliable, and stalwart. Nowadays, they are sub-par compared to other postage companies/entities.

20 years ago, package/letter from eastcoast was here in Phoenix a sorting facility in a day, delivery day after. Heck now, I order from Oregon, 3 days standard shipping, watching it pinball down from Oregon to Phoenix, order from Washington State, 2 days. ?????, how is that possible when Oregon and Washington are back to back together, same region. Order from North Carolina 3 days, and an even bigger pinball game, one time NC to Texas, to Denver, to California, then over to Arizona, next time, NC to Michigan, to Missouri, to California, then over to Arizona. Why the overshoot to far west? Order from Florida, 2days!!!, Florida to Denver, down to Phoenix almost direct. I have to agree somewhat with the OP, the USPS needs to get their acts together.

 

[Jonathan Tittle]

USPS has been making some changes, one of which is a default $50 of insurance on priority mail packages, which is the vast majority of what is shipped through USPS when it comes to larger orders. With that in place, the vendor should be reimbursed as least $50 and as much as the entire cost if they purchase insurance on top of what USPS provides by default.

When it comes to USPS, if there's an option, adding another $1-$2 for insurance above $50 is something I always do. I've never had an issue out of them and I ship through them daily (via my company), but that's not to say they're perfect. They miscalculate delivery times *all* the time (but so does UPS & FedEx - happens to me every single month, like clockwork). If a company doesn't offer the option to add insurance through USPS, I'd ask them to add that option to their cart. It doesn't cost them a dime, you're paying for it, and it'll help solve monetary issues should they arise.

 

[Kellycat]

If a company doesn't offer the option to add insurance through USPS, I'd ask them to add that option to their cart. It doesn't cost them a dime, you're paying for it, and it'll help solve monetary issues should they arise.

If a company doesn't offer insurance, whether free on orders over $X amount or as an add-on item either in their store or at checkout with the regular shipping options, they don't get my business, simple as that. I don't always purchase insurance, especially on small $20 orders I don't mind paying out of my own pocket on, but if the option isn't offered anywhere, it usually says a lot for the company's customer service record right there. I.e. "We aren't going to offer insurance because we don't want to deal with it." That's always been a red flag to me..and the few times I've tested my theory I'm always right, if they offer insurance somehow, even if I didn't purchase it, the customer service is usually excellent even if they do end up telling me it's my problem (which, it is, so I'm not complaining)..but if they don't even offer it and I have to contact them for any sort of CS need, whether shipping or just product-related, they tend to have a 'we don't care about the customer' attitude throughout their usually-limited contact with me. I'm not talking just ecig companies either, in fact most of those I've had stellar experiences with as far as CS goes, but when it comes to other businesses..it's good advice to live by.

 

[Enoch777]

In a better way, how can we make our post offices in USA actually functionable? Is anyone really surprised the post office is bankrupt????? Guarantee a package or get out of the business.

I'm a Mail Clerk at my district's regional USPS sorting facility. Let me just start off by first saying, before working for the Postal Service I worked from home selling on eBay. I used USPS 99% of the time. I sold THOUSANDS of items over a period of 4 years and to my best recollection only had a package lost by the carrier once or twice.

From a business model, this is acceptable. Anything you absolutely don't want to lose, you insure. Heck, Priority Flat-Rate Shipping now comes with free insurance for $50.

Alright, so I mentioned I'm a Mail Clerk? I mostly operate DBCS, which in short means I help get your letters to your mailbox. I have, on very busy days, handled around 450,000 letters in one 9-10 hour shift. That's A LOT in case you didn't know. Every clerk at every post office in the United States works their butts off handling and sorting vast quantities of letters, flats, and parcels.
Due to this fact, mistakes are inevitably made. Machine errors. Human errors. It happens. Yet it still remains that most mail gets where it needs to go. I won't name any percentages because, honestly I have no clue.

I know at work our parcel scheme has a 99-100% success rate, depending on the day.

Second and most importantly I think I should clear up the Postal Service is not losing money due to poor business practice. We are losing money because Congress forces the USPS to pre-pay employee retirement for up to 50 years in the future. It's like $60 billion a year.

I really hope you get your package OP. In the future, for large purchases, I recommend spending the extra $2-3 and grabbing insurance. There's really no reason not to.

 

[The Urb]

From my experience, initially everyone will point fingers at someone else. After some of the dust settles the shipper, if they want repeat business, will either refund your money or send another shipment. I can empathize with your anger over not getting your package and the appearance of a bumbling USPS, but Enoch777 has some valid points on numbers of packages sent vs. lost packages.

 

[peraspera]

If your local post office is not being helpful in tracking down your mis-delivered package file a police report. Then file a mail theft report with the U.S. Postal Inspector. Include information about the police report.

 

[dice57]

I had a juice order recently that I was tracking, and it was shipped to the wrong city. I pizzed and irate sure, but I went to the USPS web site, clicked on the support link and found the misdirected mal help section, emailed them with supplied tracking #. They called me back the following business day, admitting their mistake and accountability, re-shipped it at their expense. Although when my Provari was shipped, I made dang sure I was out there around delivery time so that I wouldn't be stuck with the dreaded yellow vape slip.