posted on October 3, 2000 11:06:31 AM
I have shipped out around 200 packages and mailed out countless MO payments this past year and have never had a package not arrive or a money order not show up AND I have received all the items that I paid for, until 3 weeks ago.
Two packages I mailed to buyers never arrived. Three buyers whose packages where sent priority emailed me 2 weeks AFTER their item should have arrived to tell me they have not received anything (although these three packages did eventually arrive). Two money orders mailed out for auctions I won never arrived. One mailed at the post office and one the other my mailman picked up. Most upsetting of these postal F-ups is, I was sent (but never received) some time-sensitive child support papers that needed to be filled out and returned by a certain date. These papers were not returned to the sender. Lost in a vortex somewhere???
Anyone else have postal problems like this???? Also, anyone know how long it takes for a postal MO to be traced so I can get a refund? I need to pay the two sellers again who never received my payments. AND they say postal workers are disgruntled??
posted on October 3, 2000 11:11:35 AM
Ponder this: The Postal Service "collects" enough inventory so that twice a year they hold jewelry auctions from parcels that are "unclaimed" or "undeliverable". We're talking about millions of dollars of fine jewelry. Do you think your money order has a fighting chance? To be fair, though, I have never had the Post Office lose anything...yet.
posted on October 3, 2000 11:27:26 AM
I never heard of this USPS auction before. Maybe I should start sticking something with my address on it INSIDE the box. P.S. What happens to all the letters addressed to Santa Claus?
posted on October 3, 2000 11:27:46 AM
I have had a few customers say that they have sent payment and it never arrived, and I've only had two i sent that the customer said never arrived. One was for several thousand dollars. It was registered and insured. A former postal worker told me that because it was registered, not to be suprised if they located it. Sure enough, several months later, I was contacted by a postal inspector who said they had found most of the pieces I had shipped and the person that had stolen it. They evidently had kept a watch on this person to verify what he was doing. The Post Office is like most places, there are good and bad employees everywhere. Most of them that I have seen in my local area, are hard working, and go way out of their way to help. Now, I don't let it bother me anymore than I have to.
hammerchick, There is a small town in Indiana that receives a lot of those letter, Santa Claus Indiana!
[ edited by gemstonecafe on Oct 3, 2000 11:30 AM ]
posted on October 3, 2000 11:43:38 AM
Don't know about USPS auctions for other "stuff" that is lost, but they have only two "jewelry" auctions yearly. One in Atlanta and the other in Chicago (I think...). Err..I meant San Francisco.
[ edited by schoonerdude on Oct 3, 2000 11:48 AM ]
posted on October 3, 2000 11:47:19 AM
For those interested in attending USPS auctions (which is highly recommended if you live near one of their locations), this is from their website:
Postal Auctions of Damaged and Unclaimed Items
Auctions of damaged or unclaimed items are held periodically at each of our Mail Recovery Centers. Auctions usually start at 10:00 am and bidders may view the merchandise one-hour before the actual bidding process begins. Merchandise is sold in lots and not by individual item. Catalogs may be purchased for a nominal fee on the day of the sale.
To confirm date, time, and location of the individual auctions, you may write to the Managers of the Mail Recovery Centers at the addresses listed below:
Atlanta Mail Recovery Center
PO Box 44161
Atlanta, GA 30336-9590
St Paul Mail Recovery Center
443 Fillmore Ave E
St Paul MN 55107-9607
San Francisco Mail Recovery Center
PO Box 7872
San Francisco CA 94120-7872
Proposed auction schedules (subject to change) for 2000 are as follows:
Atlanta Mail Recovery Center September 6, 2000
October 18, 2000
December 6, 2000
January 24, 2001
March 14, 2001
April 25, 2001
June 13, 2001
July 25, 2001
September 5, 2001
San Francisco Mail Recovery Center
September 28, 2000
November 30, 2000
January 18, 2001
March 22, 2001
May 24, 2001
July 26, 2001
September 20, 2001
November 22, 2001
posted on October 3, 2000 12:09:56 PM
I was behind a disgruntled customer in line at the post office this morning. First she asked for a complaint form and bitched about how she did "not appreciate" having to wait in line for 20 minutes, then she bitched about the cost of priority mail, then she bitched again about having to wait in line, except that time she said she'd been waiting for 35 minutes! (That was five minutes after it had been 20 minutes.)
Not to belittle the disgruntledness of the original poster, who I completely sympathize with. But this woman was something else and this thread reminded me of her!
posted on October 3, 2000 12:17:38 PM
I must absolutely thank my lucky stars... I have only had one lost Money Order, coming from Canada...so, could have happened over there?
As to packages, the only time one was not delivered is because buyer gave his OFFICE address...at XMAS...when office was CLOSED...
Never any other mis-hap.
Sorry to hear about your string of bad luck...I think basically USPS is WONDERFUL...
******************** Shosh
posted on October 3, 2000 04:51:42 PM
I once need to send a ring to Canada. I put the ring in a small box. The lady at the count told me the box must be at least one pound. I told her, I am willing to pay for one pound. She said the box must be actually one pound or more. I ask should I put some rocks in the box. She said that would be fine with her. I went out of the Post office and find some small rocks. I give her the rocks and told her to make sure the box with the rock does not weight more then one pound. She careful remove the exceesive rocks and charged me one pound. I put on the custom declare form "ring and rocks".
posted on October 3, 2000 04:56:35 PM
That's got to be one of the funniest USPS stories yet! Rocks, ha! (Only in the online auction world would we believe that story, but we've seen the USPS in action, right?)
posted on October 3, 2000 06:06:16 PM
I shipped a beautiful pearl/enamel ring not long ago...Was not asked to have package weigh exactly 1 pound. Priority mail is 3.20 up to 2 lbs.
But would have loved to see your client's expression upon finding rocks... Hope you did not forget to add the ring...
******************** Shosh
posted on October 3, 2000 06:47:40 PM
atozbiz, I think I can explain your clerk's odd behavior. Did you want to insure the package? If so, that meant it had to be sent Insured Parcel Post or Registered. It sounds like your clerk picked the Parcel Post option for you. Believe it or not, Parcel Post to Canada must weigh at least one pound!!! They are the only country I remember with this peculiar rule. If it doesn't weigh one pound, you can send it Small Packet, but you CANNOT insure Small Packet. I don't remember the rates exactly, but if this should come up again, ask the clerk about Registered mail instead.
posted on October 3, 2000 11:52:01 PM
If you look at the USPS auctions on eBay EVERYTHING has bids and not just little tiny bids either. I just hope they won't get more money for my lost stuff then I got!
The address label on the inside is a great idea!! I am going to try this, however, the packages that were lost had the bidders name and address and mine CLEARLY printed on the box and clear tape was put over both names and addresses so it would be pretty difficult for the labels to get messed up bad enough to they could not be read unless the tape was ripped off first.
What really sucks is although they can try to trace the lost money orders I imagine that will take a fair amount of time and mean while there are two sellers who still has not received payment for their auctions. I cannot afford to pay these two sellers a second time. I don't know why "lost money order" story should sound any different than those that we all have heard from dead beat bidders. I will REALLY get disgruntled if my 100 plus positive and no neg FB is altered because of this!
BIRDWATCHER: Charge ME a fee??? They are they dumb asses who lost it in the first place!! (it wouldn't surprise me though if they did)
posted on October 4, 2000 01:47:31 PM
Not much to say about packages but I know of two instances where payments I sent didn't arrive. One was when I forgot to put a stamp on it before I dropped it in the box. The other was recently; I had an address label to lick and put on the letter and I guess it came off. What I don't understand is both letters had return addresses on them (the second one had a return address label), so why couldn't the P.O. ("Pissed Off"-ice) just return them?
posted on October 4, 2000 03:12:09 PM
The only problem I have ever had with a package getting "lost in the vortex" was a 5 foot long sword sent from FLA to Virginia. It was the sword from the movie "Braveheart" so you can imagine that this was no small package! The double boxed package was 52 inches long by 15 inches wide by 6 inches thick!
The buyer was very patient with me in trying to track it down and had even agreed to help me with the claims process. It went Priority mail insured for $300.00, so he should have at least gotten a notice in his mailbox to come and pick it up at the PO, since all insured packages have to be signed for; he never did get one. The sword finally arrived at his home after 32 DAYS!
The only thing I can think of was that some PO employees were happy for a whole months time playing out their fantasies of being William Wallace! :^)
By the way, it was the LAST Priority package that I EVER sent out without delivery confirmation. Now all of them get it, no matter what the value happens to be. It seems that little bright green label tells people that someone may be watching to see just where it may be at any given time, and I have never had a single one get lost. excellent, cheap insurance as far as I am concerned.
posted on October 5, 2000 12:34:43 AM
JOE: (Sword013) The packages I mailed out both had delivery confirmation, however, I cannot find the little green receipt anywhere!! Teach me to stop leaving them in whatever messy room that I happen to be cleaning my walllet out in. I suppose the good news is that I KNOW for sure it is in my house somewhere, the bad news is, so is my dog and I have not seen her for weeks so the chance of uncovering a little green receipt is slim.
Does DC really do anything other than say "look, I really did mail your package, or at least I really mailed SOMETHING to SOMEONE who lives in your zipcode area"? Is there any better chance of locating a package that has DC as opposed to one that doesn't?
LORI (still disgruntled, although I wish I were gruntled!!)
posted on October 5, 2000 01:31:47 AM
I can't really complain about the postal service. In fact, I've had pretty good luck with them.
I've been selling for almost 2-1/2 years, and ship out 75 - 150 packages a week. So far I've had only 3 or 4 packages to become lost. And none have arrived damaged (I admittedly do go overboard on packaging, though, and my items aren't usually very fragile).
From what I've seen, smaller packages like bubble mailers and very small boxes (cassette-size or so) seem to get lost more often than large ones. Best as I can remember, all of my missing packages were small ones.
Only a couple of my bidders' payments have gotten lost. One turned up later, which I returned to the bidder, and one has never turned up (I really feel that the bidder actually sent it, so ...).
Overall, I'd say those were pretty good odds.
I'm not doing anything special; my addresses are even handwritten and I don't look up the 9-digit zip codes or anything like that. It's probably a miracle that no packages have been returned to me for an incorrect address, either due to a boo boo on my end or on the bidder's end (moving or whatever).
Of course, now that I've mentioned it, I'll probably have 10 lost packages and 10 returned-to-sender packages next week! LOL!
Ironically, I received a magazine belonging to someone else this week (right street, wrong house) .... oh boy ....
posted on October 5, 2000 01:51:32 AM
I wonder what actually happens to many of the lost packages and money orders. Are they sent to the wrong addresses and the people at the wrong addresses actually just keep the goods OR do most the packages in the postal recovery center no have readable addresses?
Since I put tape over the mailing and return addresses I would think they can still be read.
I have a hard time believing that if someone got a peice of mail addressed to someone else they would open it and keep a money order (or just throw out) not made out to them, it's not as if they can cash it. Well, I guess they could, but not without possibly getting into a lot of legal trouble.
posted on October 5, 2000 04:23:14 AM
I have shipped thousands of parcels via Priority Mail since it was introduced and must give the Post Office lots of credit - especially when compared to the "brown guys" who seem to play soccer with every parcel that takes forever to get to me. With the USPS I "lost" 3 parcels in all those years, and all were sent to a "lot #", so I suspect they arrived but were stolen from the customers mailstop.
HOWEVER, we recently had an experience that must set some kind of record... A customer who lives in Orlando ( 50 miles away ) sent a standard first class envelope with payment to us and a few weeks later wrote wanting to know where her auction item was. We had not got the payment at that point and I told her so. After 30 days had passed, the envelope from her shows up with some odd looking rubber stamps on the front and with a bunch of tape over the USPS bar code. The address on the envelope was correct and it was postmarked the day the buyer told me she sent it, so I took it to my postmaster for an explanation of the markings....
The envelope went from Orlando, FL to the US Army Military Mail Service in JAPAN, and was then returned to me here in Daytona Beach!
I emailed customer and included the envelope with her package when it went out the next day, because even I would have had a hard time believing that one.
posted on October 5, 2000 04:46:48 AM
I too am really fed up with the USPS service. Having moved recently I hope to have a better local office. I had many items dissappear recently two of which were 25 pound Kitchen Aid mixers. How do you lose a 25 pound box? Having to file insurance forms is a pain in the - - -. The local supervisor was not at all co operative and bordering on rude with her accusations of insurance fraud. (Even after explaining that I had nothing to gain from this and was actually losing money on these items.) I finally had it out with her and her response was, "so sue us." I guess you can't really sue the post office but, then again that's what they used to say about IRS.
Beware of the Boynton Beach postal supervisor , not a nice person at all.
posted on October 5, 2000 07:01:34 AM
I was in my local PO yesterday, and noticed an article from the local newspaper in a frame. It seems our PO has a great delivery rate, the story, with my hometown X'd out follows:
AKRON — When it comes to getting the U.S. mail delivered, the postal workers in XXXXX aren’t running “snail mail.”
The XXXXX Post Office recorded an on-time delivery score of 97 percent, making it the best post office in Ohio. The local results also helped the Akron Performance Cluster — it includes Canton, Mansfield, Toledo and Youngstown — score a 96 percent on-time rate, tying the district for the second highest score in the nation.
The results are based on an External First-Class Mail Measurement program that PricewaterhouseCoopers, a national accounting company, conducted for the U.S. Postal Service.
PricewaterhouseCoopers collected information from people and businesses as they delivered and received mail to determine whether first-class pieces were delivered on time. Postal workers didn’t know which customers were participating in the survey, said Paul Harrington, spokesman for the Akron office.
The Akron regional delivers an average of 12 million pieces of first-class mail each day to 3.2 million addresses across northern Ohio.
First-class mail doesn’t includes magazines and newspapers or most advertising fliers.
The national on-time score came in at 94 percent, while the district covering North Dakota and South Dakota scored the highest on-time delivery rate of 97 percent. The survey was conducted from Feb. 26 to May 19, and marked the 11th consecutive quarter with on-time delivery above 93 percent.
Jordan M. Small, postmaster for the Akron regional office, planned to meet with XXXXX postal workers this morning to thank them for their efforts, Harrington said.
The 97-percent score covered zip codes that begin with XXX.
“Here’s external evidence of how dedicated our XXXX employees are,” Small said of the survey results. He hopes they top it next quarter.
posted on October 5, 2000 08:47:53 AM
I swear everytime my regular carrier is off a day I get someone else's mail. I either get the next door neighbor's, which I hand carry over there since we know them. Or I get one from a couple streets down, same house number. I got one of the latters packages twice. I finally put a big sign on the door basically saying it wasn't mine!
But now that I have been spending way too much on eBay and have started selling too, things have gotten better. The more volume, the better the treatment? I will have to say I'm thinking of giving my carrier a little Christmas gift
~~MouseSlayer is not a cat =^..^= ~~
Yes, I'm MouseSlayer everywhere. It's a great name, so I use it!
I have only had one lost Money Order, coming from Canada...so, could have happened over there?
