USPS Non Delivery

Jerryc41

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My USPS Tracking indicated that my Enya Nova U was due to arrive yesterday, but it didn't. Looking at the Tracking again, it said they tried to deliver it, but no one was home.

When I went to the PO, they knew nothing about it. It wasn't there, and they didn't try to deliver it. I guess Tracking doesn't always track, so I'll have to wait.

Enya Tracking.jpg
 
This is what happens to me.

I am at the end of a 100km (one way) delivery route. The seller sets up a great store and offers amazing sales service. We do a deal and I buy an item. It successfully travels 10,000km from across the planet and arrives at the depot 100km away (near the airport).

The casual employee or contract driver picks up the item and tries to call me. I don't answer, he or she does not leave a message and they have their phone switched to "private caller". There is no way to call back. Next thing that happens, after a few days, is that the selling platform sends me an email saying there was a delivery problem and I get my money back and the item is sent 10,000km back to the seller.

This is why I have a PO Box located inside a post office where they hold the parcel securely for about two weeks so I can collect it. I only live two blocks from the Post Office, so its easy to get there. I avoid transactions with sellers who use the local delivery company.

Yes, delivery could use some improvement. Some is excellent, but some are miserable. I've had good luck with the post office, UPS, and DHL. FedEx is iffy.
 
It just arrived. The label says "Priority 2-Day Mail." It took five days to get here. Better late than never.
 
My USPS mail carrier recently failed to deliver a package and marked the reason as 'driveway blocked'. My car was in the driveway. :)
 
Things happen. Overall I think that USPS has served me best, FedEx the worst, but I have a story or two about all of them. One just has to accept that things don't always go the way they are supposed to.
 
I've had more problems with USPS than any other service. I think it depends on the diligence of the personnel at the local facility of any service, mine aren't too swift at the Bicentennial Station in Los Angeles. I've been tracking a guitar from China that I'm going to convert to a bass uke via EMS with USPS tracking info. Since Tuesday it's been showing delivery on Friday, then on Friday it showed delivery date unknown, then today it shows delivery today. I'll believe that when I see it.


This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 6 acoustic bass ukes, 12 solid body bass ukes, 14 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 41)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers
 
I sent an envelope with tracking about 20 miles and it still hasn't arrived after almost a month. Sucked into the USPS vortex never to be seen again. I had to have a bunch of people cancel and reissue checks. What a PITA. I'm just glad I put tracking on them.
 
I've had more problems with USPS than any other service. I think it depends on the diligence of the personnel at the local facility of any service, mine aren't too swift at the Bicentennial Station in Los Angeles. I've been tracking a guitar from China that I'm going to convert to a bass uke via EMS with USPS tracking info. Since Tuesday it's been showing delivery on Friday, then on Friday it showed delivery date unknown, then today it shows delivery today. I'll believe that when I see it.


This is Michael Kohan in Los Angeles, Beverly West near the Beverly Center
9 tenor cutaway ukes, 6 acoustic bass ukes, 12 solid body bass ukes, 14 mini electric bass guitars (Total: 41)

• Donate to The Ukulele Kids Club, they provide ukuleles to children in hospital music therapy programs. www.theukc.org
• Member The CC Strummers: YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/CCStrummers/video, Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheCCStrummers

It seems to me that when the package does not originate with USPS and another shipper hands it off to USPS, the hand off is never smooth. Almost every time that something has come that way it has stalled out in the transition. When we were living in Puerto Rico we lived in a secure building and UPS would not deliver to us. So there was a way to have UPS delivered to USPS and then I could pick it up at the post office. Every time, the UPS package would sit in Catano USPS facility for days on end. I could see the Catano facility across the bay.
 
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This is what happens to me.

I am at the end of a 100km (one way) delivery route. The seller sets up a great store and offers amazing sales service. We do a deal and I buy an item. It successfully travels 10,000km from across the planet and arrives at the depot 100km away (near the airport).

The casual employee or contract driver picks up the item and tries to call me. I don't answer, he or she does not leave a message and they have their phone switched to "private caller". There is no way to call back. Next thing that happens, after a few days, is that the selling platform sends me an email saying there was a delivery problem and I get my money back and the item is sent 10,000km back to the seller.

This is why I have a PO Box located inside a post office where they hold the parcel securely for about two weeks so I can collect it. I only live two blocks from the Post Office, so its easy to get there. I avoid transactions with sellers who use the local delivery company.

Canada Post added a nice service (FlexDelivery) a few years back that you could set up a virtual PO Box that would have the package sent to my local post office and held there. I get an email when it arrives and show the bar code (or you can print the email if no data on phone) and ID. No fee for the service since they save the time and effort of trying to deliver to me while I'm at work. Bonus is that I get the package a day earlier since I don't have to wait for them to redirect a missed delivery to be held at the post office.
 
As stated by others, I have had problems with all of the delivery services.

Our USPS people are very nice and friendly. I have found out that the package delivery is often a different person than out mail carrier. Separate truck and carrier. It originates from a different Post Office. My biggest gripe is that neither rings the doorbell or knocks when they leave a package. They set it next to the door and leave. Even if it is raining or snowing! I have found packages that have been sitting outside for hours. For while the carrier was leaving packages out at our unattached garage! I requested that she bring them to the house instead. She said, "You want me to bring them up to the door?"

UPS will leave a note saying "unable to deliver" if it needs to be signed for, and then place the package in an unheated locked storage container inside an unheated warehouse. Almost always on a Friday so it's there over the weekend. No way to retrieve it until Monday. Supposedly, I can have it delivered to a local business. But if it needs to be signed for, the seller/merchant can't designate it to be delivered there. I have to wait until it is on it's way, then go into an account I had to establish and then a delivery options section I had to join and wait for a code to be delivered to my house by snail mail to activate the service. Then I can specify that I want it delivered to that business that's opened 9-5 only. All because they can only narrow my delivery time to 10am to 8pm on the delivery day. I have also had deliveries that needed to be signed for. Where the doorbell wasn't rung nor the door knocked upon yet there is a note saying they tried to deliver. Arrgh!

FedEx will now deliver items to our local Walgreens. I can then go there to pick the item up. It's kept in a locked cabinet in the Photo Department. So it's heated and air-conditioned. Or, if I think I'll be home, I'll have it sent there. I will get notices that my package will be delivered on that day. But then the day before the scheduled one it arrives. And, surprise! I'm not home. Or I get a notice that says it will most likely be delivered between 1 and 3pm. So I run some errands 9-11am and of course there is a notice on my door that they tried to make a delivery and I wasn't home. At least FedEx rings the doorbell.

So far, I like having ukuleles delivered to the Walgreens the best. Then I can pick them up at my leisure. Until 10pm. Or the next day or so.
 
For many years, I've used a mail drop - it was known as Mail Boxes Etc., then changed to a UPS Store. That one closed with 1 week notice, and I spent almost 3 months trying to get my mail, because the regional USPS center refused to forward from a commercial location (even though the local PO was willing, as the address change was NOT my fault, desire, or intention.) Finally, I was able to transfer to a different mail drop, where they sign for everything, will call me when it shows up (if I tell them I'm waiting for a package) and are nice people.

Of course, the building has both a business and apartments in it, so occasionally drivers drop things upstairs outside the apartments... all of which are single digits; my address is three digits.

The worst service I've had was from DHL, which a) claimed the address didn't exist, b) was closed, c) did not accept deliveries. The place has a big DHL sign in the window, next to the UPS and FedEx signs, because they ship with all carriers. Once, I was sitting in front of the place, on the phone with the DHL Office, which was one the phone with the local DHL Office, which was on the phone with the driver, who was complaining that he couldn't find the address, so he was going to leave as soon as the rude guy who pulled his car in front of the truck moved. When it was relayed down the line to him that I - the customer - was the rude guy in front of his truck in front of the business that he couldn't find, his attitude changed rather quickly. I was told by the mail drop employees that that was his last day with DHL, for some inexplicable reason.
 
I expected a package (uke) according to the USPS tracking info on the Friday before Christmas. The sender did not mail it signature-required. I received a txt saying it was delayed. It didn’t come Saturday. It didn’t come Monday. I was disappointed, but I had a hold-mail request in place since I was leaving for Chicago on Tuesday, so I thought I would get it when I returned on Thursday. On Tuesday I received a txt saying it was out for delivery. This was a problem because I needed to leave. Then I received a txt saying it would be delivered by 8:00 pm. Then I received a text saying it would be delivered between 11:30 am and 1:30 pm. Okay, I could delay my departure by a few hours. At 9:30 am I received a txt saying it was being held at the post office. Yay! I went to the post office. The guy told me that it wasn’t there. I showed him the texts. He said he’d look again. He came back, nope, it wasn’t there. I left the post office. To his credit, he called me 30 minutes later and said that he had found it. I went back and another guy at the window said it wasn’t there. I told him that Doug had just called to say it was there. He went to get Doug, I got the package, and I asked why I was getting texts saying it was out for delivery when it was subject to a mail hold, and was told that those texts are sent automatically by the system. When I returned on Thursday, before I went home, I went right to the post office to pick up my accumulated mail, as I said I would do when I scheduled the hold. The guy told me that it had all been delivered that day. I told him that I had said I would pick it up. He said that they aren’t required to read the instructions.

Shakes head in wonderment.
 
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I have important items shipped "General Delivery" to my local post office and include my name and phone number in the address line. It works great. I just watch the tracking number until it shows that it is at the post office and pick it up. For UPS and Fedex I ship to a nearby pickup/drop-off location and then they hold it for me.
It also keeps delivery of "another ukulele" quiet until I can slip it into the collection :rolleyes:
 
I have stories with all the services, seems we all do. Right now FedEx is on my very, very, bad list. BUT, I would like to take a moment and give a bit of respect and gratitude to USPS. They seem to be trying better to keep up, and think of it...you can still send a envelope all the way across the country for 45 cents. To me that is a value.
 
It seems to me that when the package does not originate with USPS and another shipper hands it off to USPS, the hand off is never smooth. Almost every time that something has come that way it has stalled out in the transition. When we were living in Puerto Rico we lived in a secure building and UPS would not deliver to us. So there was a way to have UPS delivered to USPS and then I could pick it up at the post office. Every time, the UPS package would sit in Catano USPS facility for days on end. I could see the Catano facility across the bay.

Yes, I've noticed that. Sometimes delivery is fast, but sometimes, each company says the other one has the package.
 
I have important items shipped "General Delivery" to my local post office and include my name and phone number in the address line. It works great. I just watch the tracking number until it shows that it is at the post office and pick it up.

That's what was odd about this delivery. Tracking showed that it was at the PO, but they didn't have it. Then it arrived the following day.
 
Yes, I've noticed that. Sometimes delivery is fast, but sometimes, each company says the other one has the package.

Also when they do the hand off a lot of time the tracking stops. I bought a fountain pen from Japan. The tracking from some delivery service I've never even heard of followed it all the way to Tacoma, Washington, then stopped. So I was thinking that it was stuck in customs or something. A week later it showed up unannounced, delivered by USPS to my mail box.
 
I've had more problems with USPS than any other service. I think it depends on the diligence of the personnel at the local facility of any service, mine aren't too swift at the Bicentennial Station in Los Angeles.
You are right about that. Up until this winter I've had my mail forwarded during the winter. I found out the my carrier physically forwarded the mail. I always thought I guess that there was some magical way it all happened automatically, but no, the carrier does it. The first four years it went great. Then my carrier retired and my new carrier is not so good. Sometimes he forgets that I'm gone for the winter. But one thing is that when mail is forwarded like that, the carrier gets to decide what to send. They weed out any junk mail. I've had stuff that was not junk weeded out, especially financial correspondence that is put in an envelope that is designed to not look like a new credit card. But in their favor, lots of times sellers will not ship to Puerto Rico. But if I can get them to ship it to my address in Iowa by USPS, they will forward it down. I usually get it four days later. The key word here is usually.
 
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