Why We HATE the U.S. Postal Service

Hmmm - my Fenix L0P was mailed on 1-17-06. Today's mail arrived - STILL NO FENIX L0P!! That means it most likely won't arrive until Monday, which would make it 6 to 7 days to deliver. That's some real fine "Priority" Mail service. Sure am glad I don't have to rely on "Government" Health Care.

Interesting prospective as government and state employees have some of the best benefits out there.

USPS is good for some things and not for others. You have to realize they handle much more volume than fedex or ups (who is total crap). It all depends on where your shipping to. Long distances fedex is the way to go, if its only traveling a few states then go USPS.

Dont quite see how that relates to government employee benefits though.

I prefer USPS over UPS for a few reasons.
-It's much faster (than ground).
-It's cheaper.
-and my stuff arrives in better condition.

FedEX has always been good to me also.

* and federal employees have more benefits than Surefire has lumens.

I have 5 reflectors on their way via priority. The shipped out tuesday still nothing as of today but the 4 other packages that came from the other side of the country where there Thursday. Go figure.


Mac

nc987 said:

Dont quite see how that relates to government employee benefits though.

Click to expand...

He is talking about the proposed Government run healthcare instead of the private system we currently have. For instance all citizens haveing a .gov card that you would use instead of your currect HC card.

Not all would agree with you. A light I ordered from PeakLedSolutions on the 17th-Tue. was shipped the next day,the 18th-Wed. USPS Priority Mail. It was delivered to me on the morning of the 20th-Fri. There have been a few times--but not with orders from Peak-- when it took as long as 6 days. But this is rare and it usually means I ordered at a time when an holiday or heavy volumn period was involved.

FedEx has been doing a super job over the last couple years and seems to only be getting better.

In the case of your Fenix order: Depending upon when on Tuesday it was posted, there are only four days-- + whatever part of Tuesday was useable--of mail service. they are closed on Sunday. So if it arrives Monday, that is not too bad. Of course I say this without knowing the distance it had to travel or where. But if it does arrive Monday, that is a little over four days total. That's pretty normal. Hang in there.
Priority Mail is a pretty good bang for the buck. Most everything else starts at 7 or 9 bucks. Let us know if the Fenix was worth waiting for.

Well I got you all beat by a MILE. I ordered an nFlex from Taskled and it was promptly mailed First class, delivery confirmation on December 3rd. After writing it off as lost forever, it showed up on my desk January 18th. That is over 45 days from California to Mississippi. I think I can walk faster than that.

I once sent something to Nevada from Massachusetts that took over a month to arrive--via Priority! But I have to say that it's more the exception than the rule. Stuff usually gets nearly across the country in 2-days most of the time for me.

It gets annoying. There's just no consistency. I've had Priority mail packages arrive (Calif.) shipped from the East coast which consistently arrive in 2 days, sometimes 3, but every once in a while it's a 5+ day journey. Granted, it is a cheap shipment, and perhaps we expect too much, but it only seems to happen with the packages you "care" about. Stuff you could care less about seem to get here so quick you'd think they were "beamed". My personal "worst" story was a Money Order mailed from me to a party back East which finally showed up 4 weeks late - after going back and forth across the country 3 times. That sucker had writings and scribbles on the envelope that made you wonder just what the heck happened.

I'm sorry to hear that. I know how the thoughts about breaking into the post office or terminal to "steal" you package is building up in ones head when you have to wait the entire weekend. Just sit tight... It will come, sooner or later.

When it comes to international shipping, USPS is unbeatable considering the low price. Back in 2000 I ordered a monitor from the US. USPS got it from New York to Stockholm (the capital of Sweden), that's over 6300 km, in under 24 hours but the Swedish postal service took two weeks to get it 300 km to my house. Man I was climbing on the walls back then...

No one who has ever experienced mail service outside the U.S. (especially Central America and Africa) EVER complains again about the USPS.

What a bargain to pay $4.00 to send a 3 pound package 2,000 miles, even if it takes 5 days...or $0.39 to send an ounce.

I have a small manufacturing company, and we gave up using UPS over a year ago (after using them exclusively for 12 years). They have jacked the prices up to the point of being non-competitive (especially residential delivery), and ALWAYS take longer than Priority Mail. Even the UPS Store near my work tried to talk me out of UPS and into USPS last Monday!

The only advantage UPS has is that insurance is 'free' on the first $100.

I know that a lot of people like the UPS tracking service. However, it's only worthwhile if your package actually is delivered. We had one just vanish! It showed a departure scan, then nothing! It took 3 months to get the insurance claim paid, and even with tracking, the package was never located.

I'm a big fan of USPS.

BTW: someone mentioned on another thread that they had a package lost or stolen. USPS delivery statistics is 99.9999 % delivery (or better). That sure seems like a good record, even if things do take an extra day or two sometimes.

(No, I don't work for USPS or the government)

My local post office is GREAT! Always kind and efficient folks there. I think the USPS sometimes gets an unfair bad rap. . .

I agree with magic79. If you'd experienced some of the non-US postal services, you'd think USPS is perfect; they're among the best postal services in the world. I have absolutely no complaints about their service.

I really love USPS! The volume they handle is absolutely mind boggling. A couple of weeks ago a send some reflectors from here (near Los Angeles), to Illinois somewhere, and it arrived in less than 48 hours! The most amazing thing about it was that I send it via First Class Mail! Seriously, to think of all the letters and packages they handle and how few get lost. I actually have a pretty good amount of trust in them.

I've had a pretty good experience with Fedex, but my experience with UPS tells me that treat their packages like dirt. Twice I've had stuff broken, and one of the times it ended up costing me $58 bucks. I've actually saw a UPS truck that looked like all of it's packages were either thrown in the truck (literally, thrown!) or they all fell into the middle aisle. I saw the driver of the truck actually just toss a package into the truck. Not place, not set, toss! I'll admit, those guys work their heinies off, but I think a little better care should be given. If USPS can get all my stuff delivered in perfect condition, they should be able to, too. I think they just need more man power, but then, more man power would lead to more expense for the company and lower wages for workers, so I think they prefer to keep things the way they are now and whatever damage is done to the packages is just considered necessary carelessness. I don't know, actually. I supposed it would all have to come down the curriers, in the end, which would mean some places have good service with whatever carrier, and others not.

Oh well, Go USPS!

The prices went up. Instead of $3.85 to ship from east coast to west coast for a 1lb 1oz package it now is $6.05. One of the main reasons I have been shipping USPS was because of the cost it used to be $3.85. UPS offer real tracking and $100 included insurance for $3 more.

Mac

I lived on 2140 Fair street in Chico, CA 95926 for a while and it was not uncommon to receive things addessed to me at 2140 Bear St Chicago, IL 95926.
Now that I live in a small town with no street delivery almost everything gets to me no matter how it is addessed. (Computer guy 95951 works. I did that on a bet.)

I'm happy with them.

Umm. Interesting. I got my L1P from Korea in three business days. Stuff happens.

Well...I think they're all terrible (USPS, UPS, and fedex)...but I just shipped a package via PRIORITY MAIL to a CPF'er...it took nine days to get there! I even called his local post office to see if it was sitting on a shelf for some reason (my local post office advised I call the other PO and ask about that)...the guy at the remote PO said he saw it there and it was out for delivery that day...Shipped out on the 11th -- delivered on the 20th! PRIORITY MAIL. The postal worker said he couldn't see anything from looking at the package that could have delayed it. And he also agreed that it was "quite overdue"...

Sometimes, you just can't win I guess...glad he finally got the package but it isn't right that it took so long. I wonder why they don't just change the estimated delivery time from 2-3 days to a more accurate 5-7 days.

And I don't want to hear "it's the holidays"...it's January 21st. That's no reason for the delays still.

JM-99