45 Days and Counting .....

I had several items ordered in late Nov / early December take 3 - 4 weeks (fortunately my wife's present arrived day before Christmas).  Funny thing is I had two train deliveries that shipped after Christmas arrive today. 

@jhz563 posted:

Well mine finally got here yesterday,  but the wife's cutting board still hasn't arrived,  although it did materialize in NJ finally.

@DL&W. I think you're solidly in the lead for lousy delivery time lottery.

Well,  my wife's cutting board finally arrived.   A solid 30 days of shipping time.

By USPS, I sent my step-grandson a package from PA. on December 31, 2020, in the afternoon, and he got it in W.V. on January 2, 2021.  Is that a year, or just 2 days?   He was happy.
D.

@jhz563 posted:

"Well mine finally got here yesterday,  but the wife's cutting board still hasn't arrived, "although it did materialize in NJ finally.

If it were me, I wouldn't look this gift horse in the mouth and thank USPS for not delivering a cutting board gift to my wife. Mrs. 'Ski is from Brooklyn and of Italian heritage - I'd hate to think where I'd be found (if found at all) if I got her a cutting board for Christmas.

I suggest that you go to the jewelers now so that you can present her with her "real" gift when the cutting board arrives. Good luck, I hope to see future posts from you

LOL

@Lionelski, it's all good.  The jewelry sector was covered,  and this marble cutting/serving board was requested!

Still waiting for movement out of Warrendale, PA. 🤪

I have not had good shipping times when the item has to go through PA.  Fla in 3 days, In limbo in PA for 15 days on one item.

I stated a couple weeks ago we had not had any problems with the USPS.  Well, I brought it on myself.    I responded to a WTB post by a Forum member by mailing the package to him on December 24th.  It arrived in the bulk mail center nearest his home in a couple days, then sat until Friday when it was sent to St. Louis and immediately turned around back to his bulk center.  He received his package yesterday and said he is happy with the contents.  Not as long as 39 days by a long shot, but I breathed a sigh of relief as the shipper.  I felt responsible and offered to refund his money if it didn't turn up soon.  He's a good guy as he was patient and never responded to my offer, but chose to keep checking on it. Here is what he was told by someone at the post office:

I ordered some Deltang receivers from Micron in the UK on Dec 8, got them Dec 26 using the UK and USPS systems.  I don't think the Covid has much impact on anything to do with mail delivery, goes deeper than that.

Practically all of my Christmas shopping was done online, only had 1 package that didn't make it on time.  Now back during the summer none of the carriers could get their act together.

@N&W 1218 posted:

Still waiting for movement out of Warrendale, PA. 🤪

Same here, lots of packages got / are stuck there....

@Bob Delbridge posted:

I don't think the Covid has much impact on anything to do with mail delivery, goes deeper than that.

Practically all of my Christmas shopping was done online, only had 1 package that didn't make it on time.  Now back during the summer none of the carriers could get their act together.

Bob, you have an excellent point. Yes, Covid has affected many things adversely, but it has been the easy out as an explanation for lots of issues.

Sorry, but I think covid forced a lot of people to shop online and increased the volume of packages. Then too UPS and FedEx decided not to accept shipments from many online retailers including Nike, LL Bean, even Macy’s, on various days, like Cyber Monday, in order to maintain their delivery times. The excess fell on the USPS which saw volumes increase significantly. It’s unreasonable to expect them not to have backlogs as a result. Having worked for the PO, I’m the first to admit their management stinks and they’re ill-equipped to react quickly to this kind of volume increase. And who knows how many employees were out sick. Other than medical supplies, there’s very few shipments that are that important. My packages all arrived on time or early, including the ones I mailed myself.

For the most part USPS has done a good job for me this past holiday season heading into the new year. I ship and receive enough items to/from Chatham, NJ to see where some of the trouble spots are for me. I have had packages delayed getting out of Jersey City, NJ and sitting in limbo in the Atlanta, GA area for more than a week. Packages sent to me from Ohio have taken up to three weeks. This morning I took the tracking information for a package sent to Georgia on December 28, 2020, to my local USPS and asked the clerk to have the Postmaster call the last place of tracking on my behalf and have them search for the package, and then call me with an update. This repeat customer has received packages sent both before and after the one in limbo.

My wife was sent something from a cousin living 2 hours away on December 16.  It was sent by Priority Mail.  It just arrived this week.  I ordered something from a North Carolina company right after Christmas.  It has been sitting in Hagerstown MD since before the New Year.  It isn't just the USPS in NJ, NY, PA.

One thing I have heard from a couple of postal employees is that they don't have a First In First Out setup.  If something does not get processed and moved out by the end of the day, they pile the next days stuff on top of it and so on.  I suppose this allows them to maximize their on-time percentage.  It does mean anything that is late will be very late.

My work is very reliant on USPS.  Many of our customers want documents mailed to them rather than emailed.  So far USPS seems to be doing fairly well with that.

@bluelinec4 posted:

Ha! That's pretty funny right there!

Though it may have been worse this year, it's not just this year in particular. Winter of 2019 I purchased off eBay an early 1970s vintage electric football game (of all things). It was shipped with a tracking number, so I tracked it.

Via the tracking number, I watched it go back and forth, up and down, across a two state area, visiting several larger cities in the process. It finally landed on my front porch several weeks later. If it weren't so disconcerting to see your package go past your town to a larger city one state away (several times), it would have been entertaining.

Andre

Two days ago found a very large FEDEX package on our porch. Not ours, belonged to a totally different address in another town. My wife called FEDEX and they said they couldn't do anything about it as we were not "the shipper". Fortunately it had the woman's phone number on the box and she drove over to pick it up.

I have a package that sat for a month at the local USPS distribution center. On Saturday, it was taken to another distribution center which was helping the first one dig out from all the packages. It is out for delivery now.

Hopefully this is a sign that they are almost back to normal.

@bluelinec4 posted:

I know this was posted in jest and is hilarious but in reality the postal delays are causing real issues.   My wife and I both work in the insurance industry and we're now seeing instances of individuals having coverage suspended for non-payment of premiums due to the fact they haven't received billing statements or we haven't received their payments.    As much as it's hard for many of us to understand why anyone would still handle bill paying in this manner the reality is that with the large number of seniors in this country and those younger without the means to have an electronic device even a very small percentage equals a large number of actual people.  And for the record, there is nothing wrong with seniors - it's just a fact that some prefer to do things the way they've been doing them all their lives and they have yet to embrace or understand the digital world.   I deal with it with my parents who are both in their 80s.   Let's just hope things get back to some sense of normalcy as 2021 progresses.

My own personal experience echoes what some have posted here.   If my package has to go through Atlanta, Ga or York, PA it will have an extended visit at those facilities unless it comes from an Amazon direct seller.   I've yet to have a delay of more than one day with Fed Ex or UPS.   Since mid-October I've shipped or had shipped to me 102 packages.

At least in my area, I know the local post office folks are working as hard as they can to deliver the mail.   Several days a week my neighborhood will have the mail dropped off twice a day and they are making deliveries on Sundays. And no, I am not rich and do not live in an upscale neighborhood so there is no preferential treatment here.   If I wasn't still clinging to the dwindling middle class I would have something better than a crappy basement layout. 

Your mileage may vary.

-Greg

Harrisburg and Warrendale are major problems in PA. Seems like that has already been covered here but they seem like the black holes where stuff sits for several weeks. When I call my local post office to check and they just say it's probably sitting in a truck at Harrisburg waiting to be unloaded and sorted.

@CarGuyZM10 posted:

I have a package that sat for a month at the local USPS distribution center. On Saturday, it was taken to another distribution center which was helping the first one dig out from all the packages. It is out for delivery now.

Hopefully this is a sign that they are almost back to normal.

This may be exactly what happened to the package I sent out that I mentioned here earlier this morning.

@DoubleDAZ posted:

Sorry, but I think covid forced a lot of people to shop online and increased the volume of packages. Then too UPS and FedEx decided not to accept shipments from many online retailers including Nike, LL Bean, even Macy’s, on various days, like Cyber Monday, in order to maintain their delivery times. The excess fell on the USPS which saw volumes increase significantly. It’s unreasonable to expect them not to have backlogs as a result. Having worked for the PO, I’m the first to admit their management stinks and they’re ill-equipped to react quickly to this kind of volume increase. And who knows how many employees were out sick. Other than medical supplies, there’s very few shipments that are that important. My packages all arrived on time or early, including the ones I mailed myself.

It would have been better if I had written that my wife and I have seen some other shortcomings (having nothing to do with delivery of packages) that have been blamed on covid that were actually from mismanagement dating back to 2019 and before.

Twice I saw news items that reported both situations you mention Dave, volume and illness.  We shopped online a lot more this year and sent out and received several packages from private individuals.  That one package that really didn't take all that long to get to its destination wasn't bad at all.  I am as guilty as anyone who has forgotten the days of "Please allow 6 to 8 weeks for delivery". 

Hi all,

My particular piece of mail was not train-related but is illustrative of the problems at the USPS, at least in the weeks before Christmas. This was a Priority Mail 2-Day package, mailed early on November 28th from Long Island, NY, being sent to Salem, OR, where my daughter lives. It didn't arrive until mid-day on December 8th, ten days later. (Apparently, not bad compared to some of your shipping issues.) However, the oddest part of my package's journey was the following: It bounced back and forth between Louisville, KY, and Lexington, KY, several times between December 2nd and December 6, before finally heading out West. I can't figure out any logic for that. It's clear from the tracking that the USPS knew where it was, and presumably where it was going, but still sent it back and forth between two cities in a state that's probably 1,500 miles from its intended destination. Truly baffling.

Good luck to all of you still awaiting packages. Hopefully, this situation will get better over time.

Stay well.

Chris

This one makes me shake my head.  I had a package picked up on 1/4 headed from my home in Southeastern Pa via USPS Priority Mail headed to Fishkill, NY yet for some reason it heads to the hub in Tallahassee, Fl:

I'm sure there's a reason but still.........

-Greg

I am waiting for a package from northern Il. to my home in southern In about 300 miles. check out the tracking.    Wayne

Because of my worn out right shoulder, I ordered an electric lawnmower Saturday from Amazon, 2 guys in an Amazon truck pulled up early Monday morning and carried it to my garage.  2 day delivery and inside the garage!!!  I fully expected it to be thrown out as they zoomed by the house.

I can remember when my parents and others in the neighborhood use to give the mailman and garbage men something in the way of a gift for Christmas.  Those days are gone.  Of course back then we had the same mailman or garbage men every time.

@Bob Delbridge posted:

...I can remember when my parents and others in the neighborhood use to give the mailman and garbage men something in the way of a gift for Christmas.  Those days are gone.  Of course back then we had the same mailman or garbage men every time.

Bob,

My wife and I still give Christmas gifts to the garbage men and mail carrier. I guess we are now part of the older generation, though!

Tom 

@PRR8976 posted:

Bob,

My wife and I still give Christmas gifts to the garbage men and mail carrier. I guess we are now part of the older generation, though!

Tom

Yes indeed, we are old timers too!    I even made sure I was out there to personally thank our garbage man and mailman when each received his gift.  Both of them gave us thank you cards.

We shipped a package of Christmas presents to our daughter and son-in-law on December 17th.  We live in NC and they are in Delaware.  The USPS tracking indicates it departed the Greensboro NC Distribution Center on December 18th.  There has been no movement of the package since then.....25 days!

I am waiting on a package from one of our forum sponsors.  It was shipped in December 23rd and arrived at the Philadelphia Distribution Center that same day.  There has been no movement on this package for 20 days.

I am waiting on a non-train shipment which, according to USPS tracking, arrived in Trumbull, CT on January 6th.  The tracking page says the shipment was received, but acceptance is pending.  How long does it take to accept a package?

I am glad that none of these shipments include perishable or time-critical items.  But, USPS needs to get caught up and needs to communicate with the public.  How are people supposed to know if their package will eventually be delivered or is lost?  I know lots of businesses are facing demands for refunds or being asked to reship orders because of the delays.

Vince,

  Earlier up I had a similar post and found it was COVID-related. I Googled the following: City, USPS and got a headline. Same for you when I just tried:

https://greensboro.com/busines...13-9bcd39004da9.html

While I suspect it is COVID causing your delays, like mine was, I don't know for sure.

Tom

Maybe things are breaking loose a little...

This week so far have received three packages from Ebay sellers that have been hung up since before Christmas. All were sent USPS Priority which is usually a very reliable service,  but all of these did some version of the "postal shuffle" on their way to me.

@PRR8976 posted:

Vince,

  Earlier up I had a similar post and found it was COVID-related. I Googled the following: City, USPS and got a headline. Same for you when I just tried:

https://greensboro.com/busines...13-9bcd39004da9.html

While I suspect it is COVID causing your delays, like mine was, I don't know for sure.

Tom

Tom,

The Greensboro Distribution Center has been a problematic facility since before the pandemic.  They have historically been rated as one of the worst USPS distribution centers in the country.  For the period (I believe it was for 6 months) ending in March 2020 (just as the pandemic was ramping up), it was rated the 3rd worst distribution center in the country.

My local postmaster knows me well for all my complaints about Greensboro.

Right now, Greensboro appears to be the problem for only one of my 3 packages that is stuck somewhere.

Good luck...hopefully, with just some more time things can move ahead...(says the optimist).

Tom

I've had stuff stuck in the Midwest, particularly Illinois and Missouri for weeks.

Just sits there and doesn't move. I recently ordered something from a dealer on the extreme Eastside of Pennsylvania. Sat for about a week, and then Illinois!!

I questioned the guy about it, and he said it's been happening all the time. Stuff is getting shipped from the East Coast out west and sitting out there and then coming back. Makes no sense to me!

The simple fact of the matter is that our logistics system is saturated. Possibly an oversight on the KOVID "big picture" strategy. No additional funding was identified or allocated to increase the a personnel needed to support the surge due to KOVID.  Just prior to KOVID the USPS took on delivering Amazon packages on Sundays as well. The holidays on top of this was just the "Straw that broke the camel's back". As mentioned in previous posts many USPS personnel contracted KOVID as well. To be honest the postal workers should be getting "hazardous duty pay" for what they do today and should be receiving priority inoculations as we depend on them more than one would think.

I don't think it's so much the Amazon deliveries. The post office was doing much more Amazon deliveries about a year-and-a-half ago before Amazon took over with their own shipping Fleet. On Sundays there used to be 15 to 20  employee cars at my local post office. Now on Sundays there's about 4 or 5. 

All of those postal sorting machines that the Postmaster had torn apart and then put out into the rain are still there. The election is long over, but our postal problems, compounded by Covid-19, are still with us. No chance of getting better until more people are vaccinated, and more Federal money gets to the Post Office.

Happily for me, my Christmas card to my brother in Michigan, mailed here in NYC on December 14th, was delivered today. It contained a $100 gift card. Another package containing art, that was shipped Priority Mail from Illinois, took 6 days just to get out of that state.

When I was publishing a magazine, I had tons of problems with mail delivery. But that was normal back then. This massive slowdown is something new—it affects all classes of mail, not just second and third class.

@Bob Delbridge posted:

I can remember when my parents and others in the neighborhood use to give the mailman and garbage men something in the way of a gift for Christmas.  Those days are gone.  Of course back then we had the same mailman or garbage men every time.

Same mail guy on my route for a couple of years here in NYC. I have never given mail people tips, but this year, with everything going on, in August I asked, "Would you like your Christmas bonus early?" And gave him $20. In August.

Hang on to your hats! I just got a text:

”January 18, 2021, 2:44 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
CHICAGO IL NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER
Your item arrived at our USPS facility in CHICAGO IL NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER on January 18, 2021 at 2:44 pm. The item is currently in transit to the destination.”

Looks like my diner is back on the grid!!!

I work for the USPS in the maintenance dept at one of the distribution centers. Seven and half years ago they closed my former plant and for 6 months the USPS took a person with whom they had spent at least $100K on training them to repair their machines to answer the calls from 1-800 number. Worst job I ever had but I won’t go into that. The calls I got were (in my estimation) 42.5%  “I didn’t receive my package” ; 42.5% were “Your website says my package was delivered but I never got it”; and 15% was everything else. Let me tell you the second one is worse because usually it may mean the package was stolen. It could be either porch pirates, someone from the inside the P. O. stealing it or it was delivered to the wrong house. In which case if the people are not honest or don’t care they might keep it or throw it out.

I worked there for 6 months. Many of the missing package complaints were from distribution centers in (not in any particular order) New York City, Florida, and California. I do remember Warrendale, PA coming up a lot so I guess nothing has changed there. However, it could happen anywhere. These were just the most prevalent during my time answering the phone.

Just an FYI, but the package processing machines we have here at my plant have computers that read the address or bar code on the package. So it is of extreme importance that the address and bar code are correct, clear and visible. I did see this problem a few times when I was on the phone but most of the time I could never figure out why a particular package was bouncing around between one or two plants.

I have heard rumors that when a plant get overloaded they will store the extra somewhere and it could sit there for some time. Being in maintenance I have never actually seen it at my plant.

I bought a part for a locomotive from a forum member over a month ago and it still hasn’t arrived. I am starting to give up on it at this point. It was just a few dollars so not a big deal but I could have used it.

I am sure you guys know this but never send cash or gift cards through the mail. The USPS will never reimburse any who loses cash or gift cards. You are really taking a chance sending cash or gift cards. I wouldn’t do it.

As for Christmas or Holiday gifts if you have a Letter Carrier who is good to you and provides good service give them a little something at the end of the year. One thing I learned on the phones was if you have a bad Letter Carrier, and there are some bad ones out there, they can really make your life miserable.

One last thing a big thank you to anyone who still pays their bills through the mail. We need all the help we can get when it comes to FCM as it is slowly dwindling. I still do but I keep an eye out. If I think a bill might not make it I make a payment electronically. I haven’t had any FCM get to where it’s going late but a couple of bills did arrive late.

@N&W 1218 posted:

Hang on to your hats! I just got a text:

”January 18, 2021, 2:44 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
CHICAGO IL NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER
Your item arrived at our USPS facility in CHICAGO IL NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER on January 18, 2021 at 2:44 pm. The item is currently in transit to the destination.”

Looks like my diner is back on the grid!!!

Yea!

Woot woot, just got a text this morning that my USPS moved 39 miles over the past 12 days. Instead of being 30 miles from my home, it's now only 9 (overshot my house on the way to the 2nd distribution center).  Still a bit aggravated that the seller wouldn't let me do local pickup when he had to know it could easily take a month.