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

I've been mostly using USPS for parts, big or small, and never had any issue sending or receiving. I do have a gripe with FedEx they shipped my wife's new insulin pump to the house, which required a signature. The dog woke us up and saw the delivery guy walking down the driveway never left a note or tried knocking. So we spent all day calling FedEx to get it shipped to Walgreens two days later.

 

There was a thread posted up in the last two days or so, HAMBr got his shift knob from the PO he bought 8 years ago!

There’s hope!!

 

USPS for a damaged water pump in a medium flat rate box. Had to jump through a couple of hoops but in the end I got the 50 bucks insurance payout that comes standard with a flat rate box.

 

A coworker had a claim against UPS for a damaged item.
Their standard answer was that it wasn,t packed correctly.
Once he sent them photos of the handmade wooden crate and photos of it filled with 2 part expanding foam and told them that he had a witness to the condition when it left(me) then they finally paid up ($1000)

 

As a 38 year employee of USPS I can definitely say the Post Office is in VERY bad shape.
Old and unreliable (30 plus year old LLV mail trucks),thousands of employees out due to COVID,new hires starting at low wages and most only lasting a few weeks,a HUGE influx of Amazon parcels due to increased on-line shopping caused by COVID, low moral caused by months of working 12 hour days and the list goes on.

 

I'm so done with USPS. My neighbors and I consistently get each other's mail and parcels. Over the years, any error brought to the attention of the mail carrier or post office counter person is met with a huh/grunt, never once a simple apology. The entire organization is a disaster.
They consistently lose Billions every year. If they were in the private sector, they'd have gone belly up years ago.
For starters, they could save money by not delivering mail to every residence in the country 6 days a week. I have all by bills sent electronically. Waiting another day for the junk mail and anything else won't kill me. Cut it to 3 days a week. Split each route in half; M, W, F and T, Th, Sat.
Think how much labor and fuel that would save. The politicians constantly talking conserve, go green, etc. Shit, they can start by phasing out their gas "Jeep" fleet with electric/solar vehicles.

For you guys still paying bills by writing/mailing checks every month, set up online accounts and pay electronically. You can pay as late as the due date if you choose and you get an instant receipt (emailed if you want). Or you can also set up an auto deduction each month from your checking account. No more checks, stamps, and the stress of hoping your payment gets posted before you nailed with a late fee.

 

I'm retired now from the mail-order business but I see what goes on to my family. Used ups for years and always had problems with damage . We switch to FedEx which turned out to be a mistake. they pick up at 10:30 on Monday morning , so that kills the same-day shipping which we always took pride in. There are charges for Rural residential delivery which add up to $10 more . We started using the post office last November which has turned into a disaster. This is why Amazon started their own fleet. It's like everything else this will pass

 

Online bill pay is fine, Except that it gives access to any number of places with variable security making you liable for an increased risk of electronic rip-off

Sent from my moto g(6) using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

ANYTHING I SEND THAT I SELL ,I USUALLY SEND UPS,COAST A LITTLE MORE BUT WILL PROBABLY GET THERE IN A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME

 

Took almost three weeks to get a small package from New York to Maine recently. My bills are paid online, so no worries there, but some of my paper statements are a couple months MIA.

My uncle received a package in Juneau from a friend in Texas one time; it used to be a Holley carb, but he said it looked like it had been used as a jack stand, because it was less than 2" thick. They denied any liability...go figure.

Received an empty box once, looked like it had been tested and failed by the American Tourister luggage gorilla; the whole bottom of the box was blown out, and UPS denied any liability. I would really like a tour of their lost and found department!

 

FedEx contracts a lot of it out. At least in my area. I’ve seen everything from rental trucks to beater mini vans delivering for them. Most have a little FedEx sticker on the door. I had one drive into my garage door. The guy that owned the contracting company paid in cash to have it fixed. I’m sure FedEx never knew about it.

 

That'll hammer right out.

 

I've had trouble with UPS, USPS, and FedEx. None of them has impressed me, and all of them have damaged items I had extremely well packed.
But I just had another crazy shipping deal with USPS. I bought some parts from a friend in New Jersey, and they were small enough to pack in a $15 Priority Flat rate box. So he ships them off to me, and sends me the tracking number which states it will be here in 3 days.
I waited 3 days before even checking, and then see it is headed to Florida! And also says it is delayed, and will be late! No big hurry, but figured a light Priority Mail box would be air mailed, and maybe a day late? Nope. It left Florida after sitting there two days, and then ended up in Texas. Then sat there a day, and got sent to Illinois. Then finally headed out West, and eventually ended up here in Oregon, and delivered 9 days after he sent it Priority! So where's the priority? And how can they charge the Priority price, yet send packages just any old way without a care?

 

It is wooden...it cost him plenty.
It was pushed in less than a foot from my truck. I think if it was a thin metal one it would have been a lot worse.

 

The post office is advertising $21/hr + benefits starting pay with an average worker earning more than $72,000 a year. While that's not super fantastic given the wealth disparity in the US, It is, more or less, above a living wage.

 

I live in Temecula. I can tell you, first hand, that anything and everything going through the San Bernardino sorting facility right now lays there for several days. Everything I order dies in San Bernardino then usually slingshots to Oceanside (south of me) then back up to Temecula. It's all fouled up.

I'm not making excuses or anything, but right now, EVERYBODY is buying online and the purposely crippled postal service can't keep up.

 

That's nice of you, but it won't get the point across. Because, you're delivering it. Leave it hanging out of your box like outgoing mail. Circle the name and address with black sharpy and write "WRONG ADDRESS" or other snarky comments, as the spirit may move you. It may not necessarily eliminate the problem entirely but they do have steps to try and mitigate this.

If you deliver mail for them, this will not help. Sounds weird, but that's how it works.

 

Whomever made them fund their retirement account did them a favor.

They are not purposefully crippled, they have been a sucking chest wound economically speaking for decades now, regardless. It isn't even close. Anybody that says they don't take any taxpayer or gubbmint dollars is smoking their socks.

 

For career employees, yes. Don't forget paid federal holidays, 30 days annual paid vacation, annual pay raises, health care, dental, FERS matching 401K, and USPS retirement.

They are hiring "temps", though. Not career employees, most likely. Basically the postal service answer to slave labor.

 

Summit Racing has always been prompt with deliveries, usually UPS. I seem to always have something coming from Summit. Last week, I got a fairly large box, stuck it in the shop, didnt open for a couple days. The box was loaded with SBC parts. Well, seeing as Im a Ford guy, I checked the address, turns out was a guy two blocks away, same street. I delivered to him. He indicated that UPS showed package as delivered and was basically denying his claim. I made a new friend, he is a Chevy guy, but a new friend nonetheless...I think the UPS guy just assumed the Summit Racing box was mine since I order frequently, seems like a somewhat understandable mistake, right? Hell NO, its totally unacceptable, besides, a MSD SBC distributor and valve covers just wont work on an FE.

 

There is a good chance it won’t be delivered at all if you do that. It will probably sit in a bag in the back of the truck or the back corner of the P.O. for months. I don’t think that small token of doing the right thing is going make things worse. I do the same thing and I really appreciate my neighbors doing like wise.

 

Our mail lady caught me taking some mail over to the neighbors house and putting it in their box. She stopped and told me it was a Federal offense to open another’s mailbox.
When I helped deliver for UPS one Xmas season, we weren’t allowed to put anything in a mailbox, unless we were delivering for USPS.
I rode with 4 or 5 different UPS drivers, not one of them delivered to the wrong address, one guy I recall we couldn’t find a place in a gated community, he was pissed he had to take it back to the facility. Those guys hustle their asses off, ever seen a fat UPS driver?

Also, UPS rents vans as well for overflow during busy seasons. I think I recall one of the longtime drivers telling me a majority of FEDX is contracted for delivery, his opinion was that FEDX went this way to eliminate the Union taking over and setting up shop. No idea of the merit of that, just what he told me.

 

i guess your mail lady is correct, but what mail carrier wouldn't appreciate you helping to straighten out honest mistake? A whole lot less trouble for them

 

Agree. You’d think it would be helpful. Now I just put the flag up and mark “wrong address “ on it. I figure it’s akin to not pissing off the guy in a fast food place, don’t want them spitting on my burger.

 

It's irritating to see people slam the PO all the time. 'Should be run like a business' is said, when as noted it's not a business, it's a governmental service. Just like public roads, PUDs, police, fire and EMS services to name a few. If your car got stolen, what do you think it would cost to hire a private investigator to investigate/recover your car? It wouldn't be free. Or if EMS was a business; have a heart attack and hearing 'before we start, can we get your credit card number? No card? Sorry, have a nice day...'.

Does the PO have issues? You bet it does, but they're not all self-inflicted. They don't have the ability to set postal rates in most cases, so if you have a lobbyist you can get preferential rates (think bulk mailers and direct sales). The PO delivers on average 182 million first class mail items each day, not including packages; UPS and FedEx are also-rans with 24.4 and 16.5 million respectively for all items. Both together are only about 20% of the PO. Send a letter with either of them, it won't be 50 cents....

There's more to it than just that. FedEx did dump all their hourly 'ground' employees, selling the individual routes to 'private contractors' to prevent union activity over ten years ago. But even that didn't work all that well; the underlying problems still existed and the contractors started to get together to force changes, so then FedEx 'consolidated' them, requiring each to have a minimum of two routes, forcing out all the weak sisters. Quite a few got financially ruined. That worked OK for a short while, but a few years ago the contractors got together again and this time started waving lawyers around and FedEx had less choice; the 'contractors' got at least some of the changes. My son-in-law was in the middle of all this mess and luckily survived.

 

@Truck64

I hand deliver the pieces, to show them .. some clown, they've never met, has access to their retirement, financial records, or whatever .. because my post office delivered their mail .. streets & blocks, away from their intended destination.

Not a big deal, for me to make that friendly point. Neighborly & sh*t. Rather than chunk it back into the magical mystery delivery mechanism, known as the USPS.

Now if a Rodder's Journal gets misdelivered, I might have to read that, first.

 

There are literally hundreds of thousands like my parents. No computer and don’t want one. Still paying bills the old fashioned way and have no plans to change. They are 85 and 83 and retired when my Dad hit 62. They are not stupid they just have no interest in joining this technology. By your post it would seem that to inconvenience our aging population is ok. What the hell....they are going to die soon anyway, right? And if their medication doesn’t arrive in a timely manner that’s fine as it will just speed up the process.

 

USPS marked an OLDS fiesta hubcap 'delivered'. I was home all day, it was never delivered. I was sitting near a window in view of the porch and it wasn't pirated either.

If I can help it, I ship FED EX or UPS.

 

You don't have to be 'aging' and it doesn't have to be the POs fault either. Nearly all medical plans promote mail-order prescriptions these days and after having two screw-ups by their pharmacy that were almost impossible to fix, I'm back to local so I can see if I'm getting the right stuff.

 

Its not just USPS, FedEx, or UPS that screw up. I was waiting for a package from Amazon. Tracking showed it delivered to the "mail room" , Well my house doesn't have a "mail room" but it does have a mail box at the street 150 feet or so from the front porch where Amazon drivers normally drop off packages. Sure enough the driver left it in the mail box. I guess he didn't feel like walking all the way to the porch. Of course there is no box for the driver to check that the package was left in the mail box to confirm delivery since only the post office can use the mail box. So the driver got creative and made my mail box a mail room. Never did report it to Amazon but if I did I'm sure the driver would have been fired. Tracking on another Amazon delivery showed the package was delivered to a "safe location". Found it under a tree half way between the house and the street.