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

I sent a bank cheque via Australia post to a member in PA from Australia via registered mail (trackable and has to be signed for ) ,which costs more.
Only thing they could tell me was it had been lodged when and where I posted it from, geez! Like that was new to me.
The seller I sent the cheque to wasn’t impressed by the time it was taking but there was nothing I could do.
I sent it on the 15th July, 2020 and he received it 10 August. He forwarded it to my shipper in LA , they received it August 30th and it finally got to me 2 days ago.
6 months in total, got here in the end.
The whole world is running upside down at the moment so no complaints from me,
hopefully the shippers and everyone in between is doing their best considering.

 

U.S. Post Office in a small town just across the line from me in Georgia has had to put up a large tent in their parking lot so that their rural carriers can sort their mail. I find myself ordering more things online rather than go to the big box stores so I'm sure that I'm adding to the problem.

 

Been ordering Amazon Prime now for three months. A lot of stuff. I’d guess 150 items.
I’ve always received the item on its designated delivery time.
75% of the time it’s delivered with their own Prime trucks.

I’ve also had my mail forwarded to Florida 1st class. The local PO gathers it in a large envelope three times a week.
It’s arrival is averaging two weeks late.

 

Sent a Postal money order to Ohio from eastern Pennsylvania on the 29th of December, Buying an item from another H.A.M.B. guy. Still not there. Post office charged me $6.00 and change to say, yep, not cashed yet. Beyond a joke lately.

 

Years ago when I had an OT MGTD I ordered a new radiator from Moss Motors in Goleta, CA at 3pm. UPS delivered it the next day at 10am. 168 miles door to door. Times have certainly changed.

 

I ship out packages everyday, and all of them are running slow

I just had a USPS package return today that I shipped over sea on; May 10th 2019 ,

That's a Year and 8 months ago !!

Most, but not all USPS Priority mail are taking 2-3 weeks

A Greyhound Bus shipment took 2 months ???

later kb

 

I ordered from Jim Carter in Missouri. On Tuesday the package shipped, they said I'd get it Thursday. I got it Wednesday AM FedEx, one day to NJ.

Sent from my moto z4 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

When I use USPS I always ship Priority Flat Rate. In 20 years I have not had an issue this way. I don't know if they care more about it or if the white boxes stand out better so they do not get lost?

 

I ordered a gas tank from Rock Auto and paid $37.00 for two day FEDEX, got it in two days.
I sent a couple of small packages of parts to Canada UPS and the made it in about 8 days.
I sent a shirt to Oklahoma and a shirt to Ohio December 8th using USPS priority mail and neither have been delivered yet.

 

In early December I took a package directly to post office and was told it would be received in 5 or 6 days because of the start of Christmas rush. It was well packaged in box you buy reams of paper in but only weighed 5 pounds. Every time I tried to track nothing came up. Turns out it sat in post office I delivered it to for 10 days then took an additional 10 days to arrive at destination. The delays were blamed on high volume for Christmas.

 

My mail is running really slowly. Several bills I usually pay by check haven't gotten there on time and I have had to make double payments-adding my credit card payment or authorizing withdrawal from my bank account. Too much exposure. But, The USPS is over run with increased mail, decreased equipment, Covid and weather. Not the local folks fault, the problem is "upstairs". The last stuff I ordered from Amazon Prime came a day earlier than promised.

 

A couple months ago I had an electroluminescent power supply for a set of gauges shipped to me from NY, and all appeared to be going well until tracking showed it as delivered and signed for. Well, where the hell is it? It was signed for by a POSTAL EMPLOYEE, and delivered to the wrong address. They did eventually get it back from where it was originally delivered, and put it in OUR NEIGHBORS MAILBOX!

Why is a postal employee signing for MY stuff? I never did get an answer to that question.

 

...I never lose a key when I have a spare!

 

I went to ship this small box (happened to have a pair of steering arms); not a ton of weight there, and not terribly big. USPS wanted close to $20 to send it. I told the lady at the counter to give it back to me; I will box it in a larger box (taking up more room in their truck, which translates to less room for other stuff) and it will only cost $15.

 

I get mail for a house with the same number but a different street about every other week. Lately have gotten mail for someone with different name, street number and street, but have seen misdelivered packages from FedEX and UPS also. They all have employees whom are human, and have to deal with
the virus caused volume and their bosses. Deliveries show up here anytime from 8am till 9pm, how many here want to put in those kind of hours?

 

I call the USPS here the "Tulsa Pony Express". I warn people that depending upon the sobriety of either Horse or Rider, you might eventually get it!

 

Hopefully someday in the future stamps will come with minaturized tracking devices built in and we can find our lost packages via satellite locating............

Yep, I ordered an Automotive book from Amazon. Don't remember if it was FedX or UPS, but it never showed up. They refunded and I reordered and everything was fine. Two weeks later a truck pulls in the driveway and delivers the original package envelope.........with nothing in it. It was cut open and someone had obviously taken the book, but they delivered the empty envelope

 

USPS blows! I had a small envelope get stuck at a sorting facility for 3 weeks, it just came yesterday.

The sorting center 3 miles from me has a couple of my packages that went down the black hole. One of them made it from overseas to there, and died, years ago

 

Wow! Those are some horror stories for sure. I’m about to ship a fairly expensive item soon and it’s got me thinking. I’m not too worried about a lengthy ship time. I’m more concerned that it might not make it at all. Which shippers stand behind their commitment and actually pay for insured lost/stolen packages. I remember having to jump through hoops trying to get UPS to pay up but that was a long time ago at work.

 

It's a gamble shipping anything right now. We have shipping companies misplacing entire semi trailers of products, delivering pallets of products to the wrong cities etc. They are all over whelmed and understaffed.

 

We stopped shipping with United States Post Office this month. Too many shipments from December have not arrived. If you order parts you need quickly use FedEx or UPS.

 

In my retirement, I have a little "hobby/business" that lives and dies on small packages, under a pound. For less than a pound you're talking First Class Postage with tracking at +/- $3. One item I sell is the thread reducers for shift knobs which a few years back I could inset in a piece of foam and send in a business-size envelope for $1 (2 stamps) because those are less than an ounce. With more automation and less hand canceling, the envelopes began to get destroyed so I had to "upgrade" to more bulletproof 6x9 envelopes at $3-ish because even though the item is under an ounce, the required package is having to be classed as an "under a pound" item.
Now here's what frosts my cookies; I occasionally have to buy little, similar size items from China. (I don't like having to deal there, but it is what it is.) Typically, I'm buying parts for .79 to $1.79 total cost and the Chinese sellers can make or buy the part, pay a fleaBay fee, a PayPal fee, and pay for shipping and still make a profit. So my question is, why is the Post Office charging US citizens $3 and charging Chinese sellers virtually nothing for the exact same service? Try sending a dinky package to a Chinese address and see what it cost you. What's wrong with this picture? *GRUMPH*

 

I apparently should have read through this thread before picking "USPS Priority" for some parts I just ordered last night. I guess I will just have to pray they show up some day soon...

 

I've often wondered that one myself. If you order a small gift item and it comes from
China you have to pay more to send it to someone than you paid for it and the shipping. Their costs are extremely high compared private industry and even other government operations. 21.77 for an entry level employee. The old farts that shuffle around and have been there for 35 years are making over 60 an hour. I sure got in the wrong business when I got out of the Army in 1969.
Meanwhile my part I am expecting is hopefully making it's way up I 5 to me.

 

I ordered some parts from Red's vintage parts awhile back. Some NOS parts that are not readily avialable. I even paid the "first class" rate (3-day delivery). I got the tracking number and 3-days in the tracking info just says "In transit to the next facility".
I know everything is messed up so I give it some more time (3 weeks) and open an investigation.
A lady calls me form the USPS and we chat about my package and she asked if i want to file a claim... I know thats a waste of time. i ask her what am i supposed to do, they lost my parts. She had the stones to tell me to call Red's and have them refund my money or send new parts!!! I asked why the seller should have to pay for the USPS error?
the parts finally showed up... two days after the replacement parts i had to order from a different vendor were delivered.
UPS and FedEx are no better. my good friend had ordered some supplies for his buiness. FedEx delivered the package by sitting it next to his trash can on the side of the road. luckily he was outside when the trash man came and they yelled up to the house asking if this was really trash... if he hadn't been outside, the trash man would have just tossed it in the truck and drove off.
Another friend had UPS driver leave his package next to his mail box post. by the time he got home it had started snowing and the plow had been by burying his package... he found it in the spring...
Chappy

 

Who has filed insurance claims and actually received money? With who? Inquisitive minds need to know.

 

........it was a snow blower.

 

that makes no sense at all.

 

USPS is local, 1/4 mile away. But our address is rural, county NOT city. (our street was one that was 'between cities', somehow remaining 'county'.
So, we have a mail delivery by Jeep, our mail person is a young lady. (I call her our 'Fe-mailman')
Every Christmas, we give her a card, with a $20 bill inside. Summer days can be 104*, winter days WET.
But pretty Laurie still walks from her Jeep to our front door with packages too big for the mailbox.
Last year USPS was delivering MOST of Amazon's orders. I got a lot of them, Amazon boxed and delivered by USPS's own 'Femailman'.
This year Laurie left us a nice card with a thank you note inside. Life is good.

 

What frustrates me is that most of the US carriers don't operate in Australia. When I order stuff from the States via UPS, USPS or eBay's Global Shipping, I can track it really well from one US location to another (along with getting cool stuff in the post, I get a free US geography lesson ). The parcels leave the US and are then contracted out in Australia - Australia Post get some of the parcels, local couriers get others. The tracking stops once the item clears Aussie customs, as Aussie Post etc don't carry on the tracking.

I don't get many parcels by FEDEX (few people want to pay their costs), but at least their stuff is trackable to my door. Have lost a few parcels that way... there is a Vertex maggie out there somewhere that never made it.

Cheers,
Harv