Mail Slow Down? Any One Experiencing Any Problems With The Usps?

I've been selling stuff on ebay and shipping about ten items a week, haven't experienced any issues except sometimes they never scanned the items as delivered. I almost always ship priority and most packages are getting there in 2-3 days, occasionally they take a day or two longer.

Yes, I shipped a painting priority express that was to arrive in 2 days and it took 7.

I shipped a smaller one across town that was to be delivered next day and was delivered 3 days later.

Absolutely. We've seen mail sit in the U.S.P.O. 11 miles from our house for sometimes 8 days. Never happened until recently.

Have seen postal workers on news telling about mail "piling up" in the P.O.

Stay tuned as I expect it to get worse.

Bill Tomsa

https://bill-tomsa.pixels.com

From the art sales perspective the perfect storm is coming - Pre-Christmas sales increase and millions of ballots in the mail. Not good.

I suppose packages are handled differently and are not subjected to the coming shorting machine shortage.

Yep

Ordered a small package of hard drive mounting screws from a company in Chicago last week and tracking says it's not arriving in Los Angeles until this Friday.

10 days for a 4 oz. package in a padded envelope.

Yes, definitely. I would say about 1/4 of shipments are delayed or otherwise screwed up. Having packages sit at sorting facilities for many days seems to have become a much more common occurrence.

I also feel the perfect storm is a-comin'.

i ordered a bunch of things from ali-express. while some got to me, a lot is still - somewhere - not sure where, it got here, but where? who knows. luckily i don't depend on the mail for medication or sending payments and the like. but there is a delay. they are just letting mail collect everywhere. and the longer they wait, the more of a backlog there will be.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

As I just said in the other thread.....

Drier knobs, ordered on Ebay July 27 for arrival Aug 4, will actually....maybe....arrive Aug. 20.

The Post Office is asking for money for a few reasons. I am going to park that there, but any meaty discussion becomes politics.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
Post Modern Gallery

Yes it does so it will remain unspoken

We have issues with them also

The USPS is not updating the tracking details online until the package reaches the final city. Also, the USPS is behind on delivering packages so it can take up to a month for the order to arrive.

You can imagine the trouble that causes.

Yeah, as Abbie says they're not updating people well. I've got prints that haven't left NC yet that were printed nearly two weeks ago.

If you want to track your mail BEFORE it gets delivered to you, I use the "Informed Delivery" app from the US Post Office via my iPhone. (Its also available on Android devices). You will get a scanned copy of your mail early in the morning around 4am sent to your email address or it can be viewed on the app. Packages are listed but the label is not scanned for viewing.

I am having severe problems, too many to even talk about.

Informed delivery is also no longer accurate. I have had mail that was supposed to be delivered that day (as indicated by Informed delivery) not arrive till the following day. The mail men/women now have been directed to leave at a specific time even if all the mail is not in the van. Apparently they can also have no overtime, so if they can not do multiple routes (if someone is sick for instance). The reasons for this delves into topics we better not discuss here.

Sign of the times. ~sigh~

I ordered the tab for my car two weeks before my birthday. It just arrived Tuesday, four weeks after my birthday. I had forgotten about them so I'm glad I didn't get pulled over while driving on an expired license tab. So in other words, it took six weeks and they always say to give yourself 10 days at least.

I wonder if the officer in question would have given me a break if they had stopped me. Of course, I only drive to the grocery store so I was probably only out a couple of times since the beginning of August, when they might have noticed the expired tab (they change color every year here in Michigan.)

Yes, yes and yes! I used to send a first class letters that would go to my brothers kids, took a day or two to go across town now it takes a week or longer. A friend sent us some things by mail two weeks ago and we haven't gotten it yet. I think it is the sign of our time everyone should get prepare for the five dollar first class stamp! Our print vendor uses Fed X so we don't do our shipping through the post office, but I image it would be slow if we did.

Oddly enough, I received two Priority Mail orchids today, on the exact day they were scheduled to be delivered. They even arrived alive this time. I was prepared for a delay but it might not be affecting me much because I live in Lower Jibibitz. Regardless, I'm not taking any more chances, my seasonal plant buying is over early this year.

Ooh, look! YARN!!

I haven't noticed much difference is the delivery of items. The last thing delivered was dog food and it arrived quickly.

Most of us probably don't notice if our bills have taken longer to arrive.

I did notice today that the weekly local shopper arrived a day later than normal.

Logic says that more sorting machines would speed things up rather than fewer. Why remove a sorting machine? Where would it even go?

I don't know about you but our post office has been a lifeline during the pandemic - a vital service worth protecting.

Tbh it will take longer than usual now due to the Covid 19. We just have to wait patiently for our items to arrive. I know it takes about 2 weeks to arrive to the UK once it has left the States. .

"You can imagine the trouble that causes." Abbie

Unfortunately we don't have to IMAGINE the trouble it causes. LOL

Bill Tomsa

https://bill-tomsa.pixels.com

"Tbh it will take longer than usual now due to the Covid 19." N. Hardwicke

IMO, we have to be cautious in subscribing a reason for the slow down entirely.

Otherwise we inch closer to making this political. And god (Abbie) forbid we do that!

I know I would never do that. :O)

Bill Tomsa

https://bill-tomsa.pixels.com

Everyone is and has been having delivery problems, USPS, FedEx, UPS... this has been going or for several months now.

We still ship 7-10 packages a day out of our own warehouse and drop ship several more from different suppliers.

My neighbor is a regional manager for UPS. They are having localized problems that effect sorting and deliveries all over the country. They pop up over night and sometimes go away just as fast or take longer to go away, a week or two.

If even a small sorting center has a couple of people test positive for COVID, that disrupts the system for what ever time it takes to get the facility back on line. Some times it is only a couple of days somethings it is weeks and they have to resort and reroute things.

All of the carriers are experienced the same thing.

Over all I have not had one package not delivered but I have had several delayed by days and some ever for a week or so.

I used USPS a lot and one of the problems we had locally was several carriers came down with COVID. The facility was not closed down but several people were afraid to show up for work for a few days. That meant the slack had to be picked up by the rest of the workers.

When that happens they start to take short cuts so they are not working 16 hour shifts. One of things that goes by the wayside is scanning every single package. So we are having a lot of packages that never get into the system. There is never any tracking data until the package is marked delivered when it is finally delivered.

I might add that anyone selling on eBay or Amazon knows that drives buyers crazy because it has been ingrained into their heads that they will be able to see every stop their package makes along the way. That is not happening right now in a lot of cases.

This is happening all over the country.

No one should be surprised by this...

Thank you Edward for saying our post office have been a lifeline during the pandemic- a vital service worth for protecting.
I knew a lot about USPS trouble at this present time, but I am not going to say anything so I do not get into trouble with politic!

I think I can post this without being political in rebuttal of Floyd Snyder's personal OPINION of why he thinks the USPS mail is slower and so it isn't the ONLY reason as I stated earlier.

For those who want an alternative reason for the slow down in mail may I suggest you google "defunding usps".

Edit: Decide for yourself what the real reasons are.

Bill Tomsa

https://bill-tomsa.pixels.com

Like it or not it's a FACT that overtime has been cut..

We had 7 day service and multiple deliveries a day from USPS a few weeks back but now only one...

Also, UPS and FedEx, already seeing a big increase in packages, is seeing even more as people don't trust the timeliness of the USPS. The slowdown affects 'em all.

I got news for ya, USPS handles a lot of those UPS and FedEx packages.

Susan,

Interesting. And very purposeful.

DK,

With logistics many things can happen at once. It is not like getting fed by one hand does not mean the other hand does not get bitten. That has been the entire game plan for 14 years now.

But I must note, I ordered more cotton masks from southern CT. Those masks arrived promptly.

The monkey wrenches are Covid, and "other things". It is not just Covid.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
Post Modern Gallery

Thank you Floyd and DK Digital for saying everything I want to say and more but afraid to say the wrong thing. I use to handle hundreds of UPS and FedEx a day when I still working for USPS. If some one put the package in our mail box we have to scan and delivery them.

I work in Customer Service and 80% of my call everyday are people asking my to tell them where their package is.
All the carriers are behind or having trouble getting things to people on time or to the right address...

I reship items everyday because the USPS or FedEx says it was delivered and the people say they didn't get it, so we reship a new order.
I just had an order arrive a month late from out of who knows where 🤔???

Seems mailboxes are going the way of pay phones.

These ones in Oregon are being hauled away - https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ee8X8jsUMAEUnWS?format=jpg&name=small

Yes. From NC I sent something to an attorney in CA. It took 8 days, first class. Used to take 3 or 4 days.

Interesting article:
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wk9z/the-post-office-is-deactivating-mail-sorting-machines-ahead-of-the-election

Edward,
Add brick and mortar banks. They are closing left and right. People do online banking now, and the B&M'ers are closing.

I never said it was the only reasons. You can go to the USPS service web page and see a whole list of reasons for service disruptions. https://about.usps.com/newsroom/service-alerts/

And they were not my opinions. These are "facts" told to me by manages, troops on the ground, the people actually delivering the mail and packages by the both USPS and UPS.

The USPS Twitter account has become very flippant and jokey. It's like no one cares anymore for.... reasons.

Yes, I ship things everyday with my ebay sales and have been noticing longer than usual delivery times in the last 2-3 weeks all over the country. Before that most places were still getting priority mail in 2-3 days except for the extreme NE and the west coast. Now priority mail estimated delivery times are 4-7 days. Most of my customers are being very understanding about it.

Making the post office less competitive doesn't seem like a smart business decision.

Yes, seems every thing is running a little late. I have informed delivery so at least I know ahead of time what is coming to my box.

"The Postal Service has so far experienced only minor operational impacts in the United States as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic." USPS

Floyd,

According to the USPS link you shared. But FAA needs a month to send a package? And so do most other services online now.

Joy,

I never bother using Twitter for customer service. It is an oxymoron. I learned quickly a few years ago, anyone manning Twitter for say ATT was doing an in one ear out the other.

Edward,

Making the post office less competitive was paid for by UPS and FedEx. The last mile is USPS. Basically $10 envelope with UPS is handed off for $1 to the USPS for delivery. By law the USPS needs to go before congress to alter their practices to become competitve. Wont happen.

People,

Be very careful with paying bills by mail. Be even more careful if you get your scripts by mail.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
Post Modern Gallery

I wasn't using it for CS, Dave. I saw a retweet in my feed from someone I follow commenting on a USPS tweet about employees (with a pic of a big palm tree with a mailbox at the foot of it)) saying we must all be on vacay. I thought it was rather unprofessional and it gave me an uneasy feeling, as I know people with jobs at the USPS and that is not true.

But oddly, I've not gotten any mail now for 3 days running... not even a piece of junk mail. And that is very unusual.

So far we have not been greatly impacted. A package I was not expecting until Monday arrived today. Last week our regular carrier must have been on vacation. Her replacement didn't deliver until 5:30-6:00 PM each night. She usually comes through around noon. Some of my meds come Fedex or UPS, I think they because they need to be refrigerated and are shipped with cold packs. UPS and Fedex are just more reliable for this kind of thing. Otherwise all we get is junk mail. I pay all my bills online.

A few years back postal management had some great ideas for saving money, like dropping Saturday residential delivery. But the things they wanted to do literally require an act of congress to make them happen.

500 mail sorting machines are being taken off line across the county - https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pkyv4k/internal-usps-documents-outline-plans-to-hobble-mail-sorting?utm_content=1597411702&utm_medium=social&utm_source=motherboard_twitter

Chuck, do you believe we loose money on first class letter mails and the junk mails and the bulk mails are the Post Office bread and butter.

To-Tam, funny you should ask. In the '80s and '90s I worked in the direct mail industry (i.e. junk mail). The company I worked for was the largest single mailer next to the federal government. The price of stamps was kept where it was because bulk mail made all the money for the USPS. Online advertising has certainly taken a toll on the USPS. Oddly enough the amount of junk mail I receive has increased 3 fold over the past few years.

One of the problems is that people keep looking at the Post Office as if it's a business that has to turn a profit, instead of as an essential government service like the military.

I have something called 'informed delivery' which gives me a daily preview of what's coming in my mail. About the last week and a half, it's taken an extra two to three days to get it. That's about the time the new postmaster general started 'cutting unnecessary services', which presumably means delivering the mail in a timely basis. Prior to this, the mail seen in my morning email was ALWAYS delivered on that day.

Thank you Chuck! I worked for USPS for 30-years as clerk in a big mail processing center and my husband worked as letter carrier for almost 40-years.
I am feeling the pain for the USPS because we never get any funding from the Gov like other non profit organizations. We make our living by selling the stamps and each time we made any money the Gov took it away and give to other organizations. Our equipment for process the mails are old and
all the mail trucks have no Air, just think about you sit in that truck for 8-12 a day in the 80-90% or walking all day if you have a walking route, and if one of the carrier out you have to run the tail end for the mails that why you get your mails late when your carrier is out.

Obviously we can't have a political discussion, BUT the only solution to the issue is a political one.

So for those people who are (rightfully, IMHO) unhappy, there are more effective ways of letting those responsible know your feelings than posting here.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

My drier knobs arrived, ten days late. But better than Aug. 20.

I think everyone knows. Even those who wish for something else. I think we all have been heard.

The person who is against xyz, he has in fact this week asked to do xyz in Florida with his wife.

Ed,

I read it is over 600 machines that were taken out of service.

Or were being taken out of service.

And I will say, neither of our sources is wrong. Just one may be more up to date.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
Post Modern Gallery

There is a movement afoot to buy stamps - just to show support to the US post office.

We can always use the stamps later. Or send out FAA greeting cards to all of our friends.

:-)

i'm not sure what is political any more, but from my understanding the guy in charge invested like $70 million in other shipping companies like UPS and a few others. so he is now on the inside of the competition making it slow on purpose to get people to use the other places. or that is the strong theory. also they are removing mail boxes, keeping clusters but removing the singles for no real good reasons.

671 sorting machines were removed. calling it a cost saving measure. it could process 30,000 pieces of mail using 2 people. now it will take a team of 30 to do the same thing in one shift. they said that it was cost savings to remove it, because we have more packages. which are piling up because they said to leave it. there is no reason to physically remove a machine.

so every day there is backlog of any kind, each day will probably double onto itself. i wonder when there will be so much mail in there, that there won't be room for people.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Sounds like a crime to me.

Something is afoot, no question.

Something STINKS!!!

Mail slow in our neighborhood? Yes, but only because of frequent (ancient Jeep delivery vehicle) breakdowns. One quit running right in front of our mailbox last week. Tina (our letter carrier) got to relax on our front porch with a cool iced tea for 45 minutes until a replacement truck arrived.

On another note:

"the guy in charge invested like $70 million"

I seriously doubt that is the case. While it may be true that whichever firm (or firms) is managing "his" investments is also managing investments for countless other people. Someone may be cherry-picking that number for propaganda purposes.

While it is true that FedEx and UPS stocks have seen a great increase since March...any of YOU (reading this) who may be on a pension plan, 401K or retirement plan (other than social security) are also receiving the benefit of those large increases. It would "sound like a crime to me" if those management firms would not be investing in rising stocks - for the benefit of ALL their clients.

While I, personally, do not have stock in those shipping companies I do own a few shares of four major Electric Vehicle manufacturers (yes, including Tesla). Two of those EV manufacturers are seriously in contention/consideration for a piece of the action when the USPS replaces their ancient fleet of vehicles. Apart of the new huge budget allocation includes the purchase of a (very) large number of EVs. I hope it is not a crime that I am taking advantage of increases in that segment of the Stock market.

Sheesh......

OK - enough with the politics, please.

right now they are protesting in front of the postmasters house with tremendous noise. using drums and airhorns to protest him. they stopped taking away mail boxes in the west. but it won't help the slow downs internally.

from my understanding he did invest that much, they gave a range of $30-70 million. in not just UPS. but he does have ethics violations.

they do mention something about investing or partly owning a trucking company that deals with us mail.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/12/politics/postal-service-dejoy-conflicts-amazon-trades-xpo-stake/index.html

in any case its all very fishy to claim that they are saving money by removing things. which actually costs more money. and there are pile up's of all kinds and its slower. covid didn't help any.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

Bill,

I am pretty sure it is the case. He was not just buying a mutual fund or having someone else manage his money.

Yahoo was showing an aerial view of his mansion earlier today. He knows what he is doing.

The claim, it was a policy overhaul. Overhaul this!! So not.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
Post Modern Gallery

Really it is time to close this thread.

Or at least for me to leave it. I have said enough on the edge of politics.

Over and out.

Dave

Ancient vehicles - seems to be a reason to invest in the infrastructure of the Post Office rather than cripple it further. Unless the goal is to make it so bad it is eliminated.

i just can't wait until they bring back the ponies. at least that would make a nice picture. especially navigating it up the stairs in an apartment building.


----Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

I get packages delivered by UPS & Fedex all the time. NO DELAYS, even though I live way out in the boonies. Stuff arrives when it's supposed to arrive, all through Covid.

USPS, not so much. Stuff shipped UPS that hits a post office for final delivery (Surepost) gets lost at the post office and has to be replaced, and I'm left waiting to see if the post office loses them again. Surepost sucks. Straight UPS deliveries do not suck.

Made the mistake of ordering a phone to be shipped USPS. Phone still sitting in some post office in Illinois 6 days after it was accepted.

So, what are we going to do about it? No, don't answer that! You know exactly what the remedy is so either fix it or quit bitching.

Here is something in our neighborhood that has always slowed our daily deliveries down but has recently changed.

Our mailman loves to stop and talk to anyone who comes out to meet him. I rarely come out because he is hard to get away from. Nice guy though.

Lately he has been on time and while I appreciate getting my mail earlier in the day and at a regular timing, it is also kind of a sad commentary when a small friendly town like ours now barely give each other the time of day. Everyone is afraid of each other now and don't even make eye contact much anymore.

I am sorry, the kinds of things being discussed here in no way cause the kinds of problems we are seeing worldwide on package delivery.

Some of this stuff is political nonsense and has no business even being speculated here. It is right off the talking points of on one of the political campaigns.

$70 million dollars in a operation that generates $71 billion in revenues is less than a drop in the bucket. The idea that kind of money can cause the sort of delays is a huge stretch of one's imagination.

Is that $70 Million and "that guy in charge" causing interruptions in European Union as well?

How about the UK?
Royal Mail Update - Saturday 15 and Sunday 16 August 2020
"Weekend deliveries and collections should take place in almost all parts of the UK on Saturday 15 August. However, despite our best endeavours, some areas of the country continue to experience varying levels of delivery disruption. This is due to the effects of Coronavirus-related absences and necessary social distancing measures, such as reducing the number of people together in shared spaces and vehicles. We're sorry for any inconvenience. We're working hard to keep any delays to a minimum, while keeping our people and customers safe."

Do some research...

The European Union is also reporting delays...

Remember the saying: Google first, then post.

Floyd,

From your USPS service alerts link

""The Postal Service has so far experienced only minor operational impacts in the United States as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic." USPS"

- USPS

The $70 million was his investing stuff. It was not operations.

Yes all of this is political. All of it, what you say, what I say, all of it.

The EU and UK maybe reporting delays due to Covid. We are also in the US reporting delays beyond Covid.

Edit, the main cause of the delays as reported by the head of the post office, he made a "policy overhaul". Nice cover if you will pardon my sarcasm.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
Post Modern Gallery

Floyd,

You are honest.

You ascribe that to other people.

That is not true of some people. They are not you.

That is directed well outside of anyone in this forum.

My brother in law in medicine discussed insurance sales people as caring last Christmas. I said I see them having the three martini lunches. He was ascribing his need to care for people as everyone's need. It just is not true. He realized what I meant. It is part of his job also to sit opposite these guys in negotiations.

Dave Bridburg
Bridburg.com
Post Modern Gallery

Ok I have said several times in the past that economic is as bad as political so let us now stop.

Thank you

Unless you are a fly on peoples walls you have NO idea what is going on

COVID-19 is the main reason for shipment issues across the world right now


--------------------------------------------
END

Well, we do have this from the Post Master General:

The Post Master General admits ‘unintended consequences’ of his policy overhaul.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy acknowledged in an internal memo to staff that his sweeping operational changes have brought “unintended consequences” to the U.S. Postal Service, NBC News reported.

He should know since it's his policies that are slowing down the mail.

I am going to class this as a political post soon and close it