Art & Inspiration Be Careful How You Ship Your Parts!!

Brian, BJR, has a '49 Buick like me and he was very kind to ship me a passenger side door latch that he had left over. These are really hard to find, as they are a one year only design. Brian, being the nice guy he is, told me he was giving it to me if I would just pay for the shipping. Deal!

Now comes the bad part. Brian shipped via USPS. He tracked it all the way to the bulk shipping center located about 5 miles from my house. Today, when he entered the tracking number in the USPS website, it said, "Something went wrong. Please contact USPS for more details." It appears the latch has fallen in a black hole. Hopefully, it will reappear.

I have had several similar bad instances with USPS in the past 6 months. If you are shipping something or buying something, insist that it go UPS or FedEx, if you really care about it. USPS is not to be trusted these days. It's sad. They went from being very good to worse than awful. I'm posting this as a "heads up" to Hamb'ers. Hopefully, it won't get deleted as we all ship and buy hard to find parts quite often.

 

I have been lucky , I guess. Hope it reappears.

 

Still waiting to see if a USPS money order that was sent before Christmas makes it to me. The buyer and I waited almost three weeks to see if it was going to get here and then he PayPal'ed me. I hate it for him but he's a standup guy in my book.

 

Seems like I bought something from a Hamber years ago and according to USPS it went to some obscure Indian reservation in the SouthWest before ultimately making it to Washington. I was jealous as I really want to see the SouthWest!

 

I had a few parts lost or delivered to the people up the street from me and those people came knocking on my door delivering the parts...and there are times the usps claimed that it was delivered and signed as delivered....I will never use usps for shipping parts....I was in Norwich NY and needed a postage stamp, went to the post office and there was none to buy,....I was able to get a stamp at wal-mart.....maybe wal-mart should go in the delivery bussiness...I hope usps goes under...Miller

 

Definitely agree. The usps is in terrible shape right now. I wouldn't ship anything through them that was important to me. Even fed ex has been dropping the ball a lot in my neck of the woods.

 

Here is what the USPS had to say..... after it was with in 5 miles of where it was sent too. "Your item could not be delivered or returned to the sender. It is being forwarded to a USPS mail recovery center where it will be processed." WTF

 

I routinely .. hand deliver .. .. 2 to 5 pieces of mail, every month .. .. that gets misdelivered to my house.

Same street number, wrong fuggin' street.

Also .. .. the worst to deal with, in regards to shipping paperwork. Their service, your receipt, tracking numbers .. .. dunno' where your fuggin' sh*t is.

Hurry up & wait. Can't help ya'. You're welcome, to go home, now. Next, in line .. please !!

Needs wiped from the Earth, & rebuilt, from the ground up. USPS sucks.

 

UPS lost a radio I shipped to Texas, they ask me if I wanted additional insurance because they allow a 100 bucks so I said that would cover it, the guy never received and I went back to ups , they claimed it was delivered and I got hosed, I lost the radio and had to return the guy his money.

I won't us UPS any more. HRP

 

Not just packages. Wow. Thought it was just this area. Pennsylvania. Last week we got a pile of Xmas cards. I just got my garage electric bill today and it due da 25th. I mailed a bill Jan 1st. Got an email on da 12th that no payment was made. And called today and found out they just got it on da 18th. I always swore id always mail my bills. Now im signing everything up for online payments. Times are changing. Use caution.

 

I had a package coming to Illinois from Australia a few years ago, box about 24x24x12. The packing slip and customs forms arrived in an envelope, no box attached. It took a while, but USPS did eventually find the box, and returned it to the sender in Australia. He mailed it a second time, it arrived ok.



Sent from my iPad using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

I have used all 3, UPS/USPS/FEDEX and they all can be bad its a coin toss. and if it is NOT packed by a shipper kiss your insurance good by ! Do to improper packaging.

 

All of them make mistakes but USPS is doing everything wrong these days, at least in my area. I haven't gotten ANYTHING in a timely manner from them. 3 weeks or so is the rule. When a trailer sits on the yard at the receiving station for more than a week before the label is scanned, you know things are bad. When things pile up like that, employee attitudes, etc. decline. Right now, I have much better and more "normal" performance from UPS or FedEx. YMMV.

 

My suggestion if you have not done it is to call your local post office and have them start a trace. the online information is useless.
A couple of years ago I was sent a Three Day Package that fell off the radar once it hit the Albuquerque office. Called my local post office, they were on it. It took three weeks but it showed up, the box looked like it went through the war, crushed/taped/holes throughout it.
Contents were undamaged though. Both irreplaceable items, a piece of brass firepole from a fire house I was at together with a hose nozzle from my favorite old and long gone pumper.

 

I get a kick out of these shipping companies. USPS included. When they ask me if I want guaranteed delivery I ask why? Then I ask them if it seems odd that you pay for shipping and have to pay extra to make sure it gets there. I dont get it. If you work for a shipping company: sorry. See it from the customers side.

 

I could live with that. I think that my mail deliverer is dyslexic. My number is 2450 and couple times a week I get 4250s mail.
We recently lost a package with a tracking number. They couldn't find it so what good is a tracking number?
Oh well, rant over.

 

I just bought a speedo form Speedometer Service in Colorado Springs, CO. Rusty (@e1956v) suggested we wait until after the holidays to ship it which we did. He shipped it UPS and it arrived a day earlier than it was supposed to in perfect condition. Not such good luck with the USPS one time. I sold some 8ba water pumps to a guy back east. Sent them USPS flat rate box. When they got there the box had been damaged and one of the pulleys was bent. I sent the guy a check for the what he paid me for the pumps including postage. I then filed a $50.00 claim for the damages because that is what comes standard with a flat rate box to cover the cost of the pumps and postage. I had to prove the value of the pumps which was difficult since they were usede parts. So I copied a sold listing posting from Ebay and sent it to the USPS as proof. I eventually got a check for $50.00. The buyer wasn't out any money and he ended up with one good pump and a pump that just needed a new pulley for free. It did take a while but withe the $50.00 insurance check I got I didn't loose any money. PITA dealing with the post office though.

 

Shipping is supposed to be job #1 but it doesn’t pay enough so, (guaranteed) covers the rest .

 

USPS issues the last couple years are due to actions initiated ABOVE the postal carrier's pay grade. At the top of the institutional flow chart. Sorting machine removal and under-staffing due to illness have played their part.

I've been lucky, nothing I shipped disappeared, and everything that was mailed to me arrived, but took longer.

I figure it this way - it's like most of them are working on disassembling a 54 F-100, but their only tools are a single adjustable wrench, and a standard screwdriver. It'll eventually get done, but it's gonna take a whole lot longer.

 

last winter i was walking out to my shop one morning, and there's a package sitting by the door. Goody goody, what did i buy? couldnt remeber ordering any parts, but my memory is another subject. i look at the package, fedex, wrong name, wrong house number, wrong street, even the wrong zip. they did have the correct state. i knew the street, about 3 miles from home, so i just drove it over there. much easier than dealing with them trying to pick it up again.

 

They're all struggling right now. Basically, last years 'Christmas Rush' never stopped and if anything got worse. My son-in-law has 4 FedEx ground routes and he's gone from 10 trucks with drivers to 20 with drivers and runners just this year and told me a few days ago it still hasn't let up. Delivery trucks are at a premium to either buy or rent. His local distribution center is overwhelmed, they literally can't unload/sort all the trailers they get in a day as the building is too small so shipping delays are common. UPS is nearly the same, and both UPS and FedEx dump some of their packages on the PO to deliver (translation; you have to go to the PO to get it as they don't have time to deliver it), adding to the PO woes who have also had to deal with political meddling. And even though most in the business are making lots of overtime, you have to have time off to recharge, or burn-out sets in. I worry about my SIL, you can't work long hours seven days a week indefinitely....

 

I probably should put this on the Rodders journal thread but it did show up today. I'm not sure if it is still good to order from though.
I ordered a part for my Aussie speed manifold from Australia Nov 7 and the online chat dude said that if I wasn't in a hurry they could save me some shipping by sending it in a container with a big order coming to the states. No problem and it saved me 39 and change AU $$. They shipped it out of their Temecula CA facility on the 14th , it got to San Bernardino on the 15th and Finally left there this morning on the truck. Hopefully it doesn't go through Troutdale Oregon as I have had two packages in a row get lost there.
5 days stuck in San Bernardino sounds a bit excessive for anything.

 

This all seems very strange because for the last year or so I've been selling off parts and have shipped a lot of stuff using the USPS exclusively and they have done great. FedEx and UPS are farther away and way more expensive.
I recently bought parts for my Morris Minor that came from the UK, I totally expected that to become a big fiasco but within a week or so my parts arrived just fine via the good old US Postal Service.
It may be that there are some poorly run distribution centers serving certain parts of the country that are just screwed up and others that have their act together, IDK.

 

Its a crap shoot now. Any time I send something now I also affix the address on the part itself inside the box because I know the odds are becoming 50/50 that the shipper will try their best to destroy the container.

 

Crazy Steve is right, at least up in the PNW, home of Amazon. I've got 2 young friends at UPS and Amazon. First jobs they've ever had other than "hospitality". Working 50-60 hrs a week. The Boss had a post about USPS a bit back. Half way down the comments. Different times for us.

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/public-service-announcement.1215302/#post-13868146

 

I've never had anything lost that I insured. Odd how that works.

 

I had something shipped FedEx a while back. Tracking it all was good until a day away and then something went wrong. Tracking no longer gave a time frame (undetermined) and it took a week or so to get unlost and delivered.

 

Same here as with @bchctybob , no problems with USPS deliveries in SW suburban Chicago. Priority Mail is a bit slow, an extra day or two most times but depending where it was sent from could be an extra week. I’ll stick with the post office, I have had good luck when shipping with them.
There was a thread on Ford Barn the other day, eBay deal, some guy sold original ‘32 frame horn covers for $125. Fed Ex shipping was $84.25, for that kind of money the delivery guy should install them

 

I've had UPS and Fedex deliver my stuff to the wrong addresses a few times blocks away from my address. USPS has had delays. The USPS tracking system is a joke.

 

i ordered from macmaster car last night at 7pm, Monday, and at 9 pm they emailed back it would be here Wednesday. we'll see