New increased USPS shipping fees started today. Expect to pay a few bucks more for shipping whether your buying or selling using USPS.
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Is that for packages only or for all mail?
Lee Fritz
For Priority Mail, according to what I read.
No USPS for me after I had a Lionel Big Boy lost/stolen while in transit back from Alex M who did upgrade. USPS could care less and we had a tough time (but ultimately successful) in getting them to pay the insurance. Really a bad experience!
hclarke posted:No USPS for me after I had a Lionel Big Boy lost/stolen while in transit back from Alex M who did upgrade. USPS could care less and we had a tough time (but ultimately successful) in getting them to pay the insurance. Really a bad experience!
Please elaborate. I use USPS exclusively and have yet to have a problem. I am very interested in your experience.
the only damaged problem I ever had was resolved quickly.
Yep, they're reaching deeper into our pockets! 
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USPS, once the envy of the world's postal systems, has really faltered over the past twenty years.
Disgruntled, overworked, underpaid and under respected employees have brought our postal service to its knees (remember where the phrase 'going postal' derived from).
I have had several bad experiences with misappropriated mail and damaged items with no luck reconciling with the Post Office. My losses are in the high hundreds and therefore I ship almost exclusively with UPS now. UPS still has customer service that gets things resolved.
I have used USPS almost exclusively over the last year for 20-30 shipments and have had a uniformly positive experience. I switched from UPS because the Post Office is cheaper and faster, which I expect to continue even after this increase.
They 'lost' a broken iPhone for us that was headed back to the insurance co. Luckily we had tracking and the insurance co took responsibility for using them. It was sent in this stupid padded envelope, and I am sure every USPS employee who touched it knew it was an iPhone 6. They probably fix them and sell them at $150 profit each.
That said, I used them a lot and always get the tracking, which is now much improved. I recommend buying the shipping labels online from USPS.com. They will give you a 10% to 15% discount.
I have found that the flat-rate packages usually cost more to send that regular priority mail by weight.
I ship alot of items and use USPS as much as possible, they will get a few cents more but they still seem to me to be the best game in town so to speak, especially their Flat Rate Priority packages. With a little insurance and tracking included makes it even a bit better. Even with USPS now also charging dimensional rate they beat out FedEx and UPS for me each and every time almost.
In fact my carrier recently showed me when he drops a package he has to scan it, and when it's scanned it actually has a gps tracker on it so if a package is delivered to the wrong address they can actually prove where it was delivered to the first time. He says it's nearly impossible to "lose" a package anymore....
Please someone correct me if I am wrong but hasn't the USPS adopted the same system for claims as UPS and FedEx, deny a claim the first time no matter what? I have had two claims in all the pkgs I have ever shipped, both times denied, both times I filed an appeal immediately with the exact details/pictures etc and both times they turned into successful claims.
With the huge cutbacks in personnel in my area, it's a wonder the carriers can keep up, but they do a great job around me.
The USPS no longer offers a discount when printing your Priority Labels online. They also did away with their Regional Rate Boxes which could often be cheaper than Flat Rate.
Just an FYI, I have a friend who works at the post office and made over 100k last year and he does not work very hard. They are not over worked and are definitely not under paid
Folks, if you wish to use USPS, it is, of course, your decision. They treated Alex and me really badly. They will get no more of my business (not that they care!) . BTW, while waiting in line trying to get some help at the post office on the "lost" train, the guy ahead of me was complaining about a large number of lost letters containing checks for his insurance business. He said that if it continued, he might lose his business. They blew him off - could care less. Classic example of a unionized public service.
Gentlemen,
I have to admit in our Wellsboro, Pa area our USPS has a fantastic Post Master, and the carriers do a great job, in fact better than UPS & FEDX especially lately. USPS upper management making the Gaines Post Office part time however, has really PO'ed a lot of people. Try making a big city Post Office part time and see what happens, the crazies would burn it to the ground, our mountain community is just as important as Phily, to the people who live and work here. We however respect the law in our mountain communities. We believe in God and the US Constitution, especially the 2nd Amendment. Criminals stealing from the US Mail in our mountain communities are dealt with harshly .
Potter/Tioga County Justice is no joke.
PCRR/Dave
DennisB posted:The USPS no longer offers a discount when printing your Priority Labels online. They also did away with their Regional Rate Boxes which could often be cheaper than Flat Rate.
I just got the discount last week. Do that change this week?
George
My USPS Carrier and my UPS Driver dislike making package deliveries to my address. The reason being I had four damage claims against both. Now every package comes, "Signature & Inspection Required NO EXCEPTIONS!!".
We have a fantastic local (rural) post office. Last fall I shipped 200 Lionel Cumbres and Toltec box cars we produced as a fund raiser for our upcoming TCA convention. O lost, 0 complaints.
I have shipped many packages by the USPS and have had no problems. I also use fedex ground for long distance again never a problem.
hclarke posted:Folks, if you wish to use USPS, it is, of course, your decision. They treated Alex and me really badly. They will get no more of my business (not that they care!) . BTW, while waiting in line trying to get some help at the post office on the "lost" train, the guy ahead of me was complaining about a large number of lost letters containing checks for his insurance business. He said that if it continued, he might lose his business. They blew him off - could care less. Classic example of a unionized public service.
has nothing to do with the workers being unionized.
management runs the place and it is management policies that the workers must follow.
ask to take a tour of the place and see how it is run!
George S posted:DennisB posted:The USPS no longer offers a discount when printing your Priority Labels online. They also did away with their Regional Rate Boxes which could often be cheaper than Flat Rate.
I just got the discount last week. Do that change this week?
George
the changes take effect today 1-17-2016
Matt Makens posted:Just an FYI, I have a friend who works at the post office and made over 100k last year and he does not work very hard. They are not over worked and are definitely not under paid
I'm assuming that your friend must be in upper management to be drawing that sort of salary - what position do they hold? My dad was a rural carrier for years and never came anywhere close to that sort of pay - here's a look at wages for postal carriers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for 2014 - the mean (average) salary for a carrier was $51,970:
http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes435052.htm
BTW - my dad worked his a** off every time he ran his route, and took pride in what he was doing.
-
I work for USPS, I certainly don't make 100K a year, I work 6 days a week with only lunch off [ sometimes, usually work outback through lunch ] . Most of us are LOWER paid employees, most of the higher paid people have retired or are about to, newer employees will likely NEVER hit the pay levels of the past, they have gone to a more part time based work force [ although I work a lot I am classified as a part time employee ]...all that said, most of us do try our very best to get the mail from point to point without incident, we do have pride in our work and our organization and strive to get it right. But with the sheer VOLUME that all three shippers in the US move there are bound to be problems, some damage, etc.
We try to weed out the bad apples ourselves but occasionally as folks see in the media, with an organization as big as the USPS we still manage to have the occasional idiot show up on camera doing something stupid or illegal and getting caught. It happens, and the same goes for customer service, for every 4 good clerks we have there is that one jerk that doesn't like their job, people, the public in general, or has just been doing it so long they are burned out. But please do not think all of us are like that, some of us really care.
As for the management and our "congressional oversight" that we are subject to [ think pre payment of benefits to the fed further into the future than any organization has EVER had to do ] well we have no control over that, or the price increase, or the media "spin" about us.....we can only do what we can do.
I will say if you value your objects, PACK THEM VERY VERY VERY well, do NOT just wrap a newspaper around a train and drop it in a box ! We use CONVEYOR BELTS, container dumpers, freight bags full of small packages, etc....as do all the other companies in the shipping business...so PACK THINGS WELL. I have worked for 2 of the other companies in the past, it happens there too, so PACK WELL !
Yeah, he's a standard mail handler. Pull bins off machines and puts empty ones back on. He's not any kind of management just a blue collar guy. Don't believe these stats. With overtime and what not there are a lot of postal workers in a position to earn that kind of money. His gross pay for the last 2 weeks in December was $6400 for 2 weeks pay with mandatory overtime
I don't know or care to know what my local carriers and post office workers earn, I just know whatever it is, it isn't enough. A constant line all day to deal with, cranky folks to deal with, I can't tell you how many times I've heard folks go on and on for two minutes holding the line up to complain about the price of a stamp for heavens sake. I've never heard one of the window clerks complain. The postal workers in my area handle it all with grace and work their tails off at the same time. I always try my best to cheer them up when I stop! Amazing what a smile and polite conversation and the occasional joke can do...
I couldn't agree with carguy455 more also, pack well! Both my claims were nothing but terrible package jobs that could have been prevented. I recently purchased a Dept 56 building on ebay. In the course of talking with the seller he apologized because the box wasn't in the best of shape. I mentioned not important I wasn't buying to resell, just to enjoy and I didn't care about the box. (I didn't mean that I didn't want it though!) He took it upon himself to remove the dept 56 bldg from it's original box so it fit better in the Priority box, no packing, no peanuts or bubblewrap or anything, just a ceramic building rattling around! Guess what, it made it here in one piece. Unbelievable. For my two cents the post office does a fantastic job. Bet if you put a number to it the reason 90% of packages don't make it is because of very poor packaging. Just a wild guess on my part but from what I have seen wouldn't be too far off....Post office personell get an A+ in my book :-)
A full timer with a lot of time in working NIGHTS on the 9pm to 530 am shift taking every bit of overtime they will throw at him working 6 days a week to get that kind of coin, and that is only during peak at Christmas. Once he retires the guys replacing him someday wont make that kind of coin...those gigs are a thing of the past. I started out as a mail handler at Christmas, worked my way up to machine operator, then special machine operator, then eventually worked my way out of processing and into customer service on a window at a post office, Was there more money to be made at the mail processing plant working nights, yes. Is life better waiting on people and working DAYS , I like to think so. Not all postal workers are rich overpaid sloths, they exist, but that just means someone else has to bust their *** to cover their laziness, not EVERYONE at the post office gets to "kick back"...someone always has to work, someone always has to get the mail out !
And when the volume is low, Matt's friend will still get his 40 hrs, but the poor schmucks that are busting hump to get the job done while Matt's friend takes it easy will get their hours cut. Here in Maine many postal workers have a SECOND JOB to make ends meet. Most of the rural carriers and some city carriers in the smaller markets have 2 jobs, it is not the same all over the country. For every "overpaid postal worker" there are a lot more underpaid, under appreciated folks out there giving it their all.
Last year we got set up using stamps.com. What a terrific program! It totally changed how we ship our products. Our shipping used to be a 90/10 split with UPS getting 90% of our shipping business. UPS was not cheaper, but they offered tracking, which the USPS did not offer.
Using stamps.com has changed us around to 90/10 the other way. USPS and stamps.com adds tracking to USPS shipments, and they are cheaper than UPS. Our local carrier is a great guy and we have yet to have a problem with a USPS shipment.
We still ship large wholesale distributor orders via UPS, but almost all of our retail shipments now go out via USPS. No complaints here!
While I think there were issues within the Postal Service in the past I do not think that is the case now. Everyone my wife and I deal with that works for the Postal Service is nice and pleasant to deal with. The fiscal issues are from Congress holding the Postal Service accountable to a different set of retirement and pension fund rules than most other companies. Business is tough as it is and costs do not decrease over time so I am not surprised. I also agree with the pack well since the issues I have had were due to the shipper wrapping things in a plastic shopping bag and homemade cardboard boxes that are not suited for anything but the recycle bin.
I won't say there are not issues at the postal service because there are, do we get the occasional bad employee or criminal, yes, but so doesn't EVERY other business in America [ hospitals, police departments, town halls, stores, service companies, etc.etc. ] But just like EVERY other company / organization you cannot paint the ENTIRE organization with a wide brush [ unless we are talking about ISIS or politicians...then, well you know...] there are usually more GOOD employees than bad employees or a company doesn't exist for long ! As for the missing / stolen big boy...I would like to hear more about that. Details. Someone feel free to message me about that one, were it happened, etc. That is an item that is going to stand out or show up somewhere if it is "lost" in the mail system, that sounds like a great one to bring to the attention of the upper levels of the post office...they occasionally put things out there like that in our daily or weekly bulletins within the postal system.....
George S posted:DennisB posted:The USPS no longer offers a discount when printing your Priority Labels online. They also did away with their Regional Rate Boxes which could often be cheaper than Flat Rate.
I just got the discount last week. Do that change this week?
George
The discount went away with the rate increase on Sunday.
I have been almost exclusively using the USPS Flat Rate Priority Mail since its inception. There have been very few instances where I have had a problem. No complaints from me!
Gary, Thanks for the posts and for having passion for, and pride in, your job. It is amazing the difference that makes. Best wishes for a good 2016. Alex
Some people think government worker.......must be a free loader. Or union worker........all pay little work. I never had a job in government and most of my working years were private sector non union positions and I fully believe there were just as many bad employees in my group as theirs.JMO
Used USPS over the past few months for about 50 or so shipments of used train items. No issues. All made it to their destinations in great condition and on time.
Thanks for the info....
Every time one of these "shipping threads" comes up we hear the "war stories." I've no doubt about their accuracy or the fact that some forum members' experiences with various shippers are not good.
Just going to throw it out there that I've generally had great experiences with the USPS, as a buyer and seller (train items and otherwise).
Of course not happy to be paying more, but it looks like about a buck increase for Priority which is what I use regularly. No complaints.
The USPS no longer offers a discount when printing your Priority Labels online. They also did away with their Regional Rate Boxes which could often be cheaper than Flat Rate.
Thanks for pointing out that the online discount pricing is gone.
As for regional rate: I am confused.
My local USPS counter person said regional rate was going away, but the 1/17/2016 price list still shows regional rate pricing. They only have rates for size "A" and size "B" boxes. I think they eliminated other sizes, I am fairly certain I have some Regional Rate "C" boxes around. Anybody know what's up?
