USPS

[Wild Bill]

Long-time supply chain/logistics guy here...while I don’t harbor any love for USPS or their service levels, a lot of this is noise and errors/bugs in the parcel message integration.

E.g.

- Unless they flew it supersonic, there’s no way the package went from North Jersey to Kansas City in two hours

View attachment 379653

- Similarly, unless they were traveling at near relativistic speeds, it didn’t go from Iowa back to Jersey in 7 minutes

View attachment 379654


Their IT is horrific. It looks like a package with a similar tracking number (possibly bad barcode, who knows, but still horribly edited by their tracking system) took the trip to Jersey, or there was a duplicate or something that any other tracking software would have captured. I imagine that physically speaking, yours went from Ft Wayne->Indy->Olathe (KC)->Sioux Falls->Fargo. Dumb, but takes advantage of scheduled routes and hubs. They just lack the routing tools to hub-skip a lot of the time, I would guess.

But overall - your point on lack of funding and cuts (and lets be honest, poor performance regardless) has meant that their parcel tracking, routing tools (and physical network) is about 20 years behind the competition.

Thanks for the insight.
I've been so enraged with it all I never bothered to look at the actual timestamps.
Either way, I want my damn replacement seal for my truck cap!

 

[MTGomer]

A large retainer check was sent priority Monday for Wednesday delivery.

Today is Friday and it wasn’t delivered.

A project that was supposed to start Monday is now delayed.

The last thing I said on the topic was, “I recommend using FedEx because USPS is consistently very slow.”

I hate to say I told ya so.

 

[NR_Hunter]

When I lived in South Minneapolis during the riots, the post office got burned to the ground and they did not miss a beat. Why the rioters chose to burn down the USPS building instead of the massive Wells Fargo regional HQ 5 blocks always will always be a mystery to me.

2 years later living in a suburb and the post office down there was pretty much awful. They would mark packages and delivered but not actually deliver, then 3 weeks later it would show up. They were so bad people were writing their state and federal congresspeople, and it was on the TV news and everything.

 

[buckbull]

USPS here in central Illinois is broken. Packages seem to go to St Louis centers and disappear for days at a time.Recently received a letter from 60 miles away took 9 days to get here.

Yeah, st. Louis post office is a disaster. Audit revealed the worst score of any distribution center in the country. I've lost count of the number of packages I've lost. I hope someone is enjoying my salmon rivers solution arca rail that got "lost" there.

https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/millions-of-mail-pieces-delayed-in-st-louis-region-audit-finds/

 

[RealMuddyboots]

Like everyone else, I have lost a number of packages, have had some turn up weeks later. But.....

IMO, no business, government entity can be this bad. Impossible. There is only one logical explanation. This has to be intentional as some sort of ridiculous "hate" against the USA. Seriously, the absurdity of many of the re-routing can only be deliberate. No software can be written with code this bad. This has to be manual over ride to send a USPS Bar Code Labeled package to a destination not even remotely close to the bar coded address. Think about it, it's a bar code reading software, not a human, so it has zero choice where to send it. Someone thinks this is a way to punish "everyone" ad nauseam. JMHO

Its so bad, companies are removing their logos, their brand, anything that identifies who they are and or what might be in the package. All of this effort in hope their product identification is masked to protect their product in transit.

We need a USPS theft POSTER CHILD felony prosecution that sends message loud and clear.

 

[Redmt]

I have 2 more USPS packages from Missouri. Scheduled date was yesterday 19th. One is wallowing around in Colorado the other is stuck somewhere in Kansas. They were both sent out at the same time from the same place by the same guy in the same company.
I have often thought that there has to be some sort of underground USPS organization that randomly chucks packages into a different sorting bin.

 

[BrentD]

Never had a problem with USPS. o ce in a great while, one takes a few days longer than expected. But they get there. My prefered shipper for long guns.

 

[Hunt&FishCO]

I live in a rural area and we only have a PO Box to get mail. Super friendly and a great source of community at the Post Office.

Sure, some of my wife’s stuff doesn’t show up; but no complaints!

Now dealing with an urban USPS…no thanks. Miserable folks

 

[Redmt]

Amazon thefts by the contract drivers is rampant. I had a delivery a while back where the driver placed it input delivery box as expected. He took a picture of it to verify the delivery then picked it back up and put it in his car. I have the whole sequence of 20+ pictures on our gate camera. I called Amazon and there reply was that after the package was delivered they were no longer responsible. The same thing happened last week to my daughter who got the whole event on her door bell camera. Amazon gave the same response again. We live about 75 miles apart.

 

[RealMuddyboots]

Amazon thefts by the contract drivers is rampant. I had a delivery a while back where the driver placed it input delivery box as expected. He took a picture of it to verify the delivery then picked it back up and put it in his car. I have the whole sequence of 20+ pictures on our gate camera. I called Amazon and there reply was that after the package was delivered they were no longer responsible. The same thing happened last week to my daughter who got the whole event on her door bell camera. Amazon gave the same response again. We live about 75 miles apart.

Easy button, file CRIMINAL COMPLAINT against Amazon with video evidence.

 

[Redmt]

Easy button, file CRIMINAL COMPLAINT against Amazon with video evidence.

Amazon claims that once the package is delivered,the contract drivers are not employed by them. Each delivery is a separate contract! The Santa Clara county Sheriff has more important things to do like protecting undocumented immigrants from ICE.

 

[RealMuddyboots]

Amazon claims that once the package is delivered,the contract drivers are not employed by them. Each delivery is a separate contract! The Santa Clara county Sheriff has more important things to do like protecting undocumented immigrants from ICE.

Amazon hires the contract drivers thru third party. I still believe they cannot divorce themselves from a delivery in a truck with their name on it. I would still file complaint against Amazon. Let them explain to court how a truck with their name on it has zero responsibility back to them. Drivers are using Amazon electronic devices that confirms delivery. IMO, file complaint in small claims if need be.

 

[Redmt]

Amazon hires the contract drivers thru third party. I still believe they cannot divorce themselves from a delivery in a truck with their name on it. I would still file complaint against Amazon. Let them explain to court how a truck with their name on it has zero responsibility back to them. Drivers are using Amazon electronic devices that confirms delivery. IMO, file complaint in small claims if need be.

We're not talking about Amazon COMPANY drivers. They are FLEX drivers hired by an independent contractor that has a contract with Amazon for "off route" and overnight or same day delivery. They drive their own private vehicles. The drivers are not even identifiable through Amazon.

 

[RealMuddyboots]

Amazon is now being held for liability due to recent court cases especially accidents. How this plays out will be interesting. Courts are starting to look at their model as inadequate avoidance of liability.

This is based upon how much delivery control and influence Amazon still employs on these drivers.

From Crosley Law site but stated similarly across many other legal firms:

Amazon’s attempts to avoid responsibility for its delivery drivers: insights from an Amazon accident attorney | Crosley Law

Tom Crosley, an Amazon truck accident lawyer, discusses how Amazon tries to avoid blame for accidents involving delivery drivers.

crosleylaw.com

• While Amazon claims it isn’t responsible for drivers, many courts note that Amazon controls major parts of the process, such as:
  1. Who Gets Hired: DSPs must follow Amazon’s hiring rules, including background checks and drug tests.
  2. Required Training: Drivers must take Amazon’s safety classes and follow its policies on the job.
  3. Routing and Tracking: Amazon sets routes, package loads, and schedules with its apps, which also track how fast drivers go and if they brake too hard.
  4. Performance Tracking: Amazon keeps an eye on drivers’ movements, speed, and delivery times—and penalizes DSPs for missed or late deliveries.
  5. Firing Power: If Amazon decides a driver is unsafe, they can block that person from delivering Amazon packages, effectively ending that driver’s job.

But since Amazon has so much power over DSP drivers, many courts consider it a strong reason to hold Amazon accountable when accidents happen."

 

[Redmt]

Somewhere I have some pictures of an Amazon delivery van laying on it's side from hauling ass on our roads. Within a few months after that, Amazon decided that our roads were too dangerous to drive. Especially if you don't know how. They started handing off all deliveries to the Flex Drivers. That was an absolute fiasco with wrecks and "missing" packages. The closest Amazon delivery hub was 30+ miles away in our closest town Livermore. The drivers weren't getting paid enough as the delivery addresses up here are designated as Livermore even though it's not even the same county. The drivers made all sorts of excuses why they couldn't deliver. Then they transferred the packages to Fremont which is 50+ miles and 1-1/2 hours away. It was the same issues only worse. Next they rerouted everything through UPS. They found that was pretty good so gotta cut rate with UPS. Next, UPS is getting overwhelmed with Amazon packages so they cut back to delivering Amazon on Monday Wednesday and Friday. Next Amazon ended the 2 day delivery thing because UPS couldn't accommodate it nor could they do the next day delivery. Amazon brings back the Flex Drivers that starts the whole mess over again.