USPS Aggravation

Status
Not open for further replies.
ptonsparky

ptonsparky

Tom
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
We got our Quarterly billing for Insurance in the mail yesterday. Due date is tomorrow. Nice.

Phone call by office help found that the billing was processed at their end on the 9th. Post mark was the 12th. Twelve to fourteen days transit from Ohio?!!

We will now be getting billing via email. No wonder 1st class mailing is going down.

How do you get your bills?
 
I've noticed when receiving bills from local businesses/utilities, the letters all have postmarks on them from Portland, which is 200 miles away.

I don't know why letters need to make a 400 mile roundtrip to Portland just to be delivered locally. If this is USPS's way of having centralized sorting and distribution, I'm not sure they're seeing the big picture.
 
Cow said:
I've noticed when receiving bills from local businesses/utilities, the letters all have postmarks on them from Portland, which is 200 miles away.

I don't know why letters need to make a 400 mile roundtrip to Portland just to be delivered locally. If this is USPS's way of having centralized sorting and distribution, I'm not sure they're seeing the big picture.
Click to expand...

That's how it is here. All of our mail goes from Roanoke Va. to Greensboro N.C.to be sorted then sent back here for delivery. about 200 miles round trip. And we had a sorting facility here but to save money they closed it...... A 2 day delivery now takes 4-6 days.
 
Cow said:
I've noticed when receiving bills from local businesses/utilities, the letters all have postmarks on them from Portland, which is 200 miles away.

I don't know why letters need to make a 400 mile roundtrip to Portland just to be delivered locally. If this is USPS's way of having centralized sorting and distribution, I'm not sure they're seeing the big picture.
Click to expand...

Well, that's the way FedEx does it. I don't know if it is still true, but every single piece of mail FedEx moves used to go to one, count 'em, one facility at Memphis, "When it absolutely, positively, has to be there overnight." That business model seems to work OK.
 
qcroanoke said:
That's how it is here. All of our mail goes from Roanoke Va. to Greensboro N.C.to be sorted then sent back here for delivery. about 200 miles round trip. And we had a sorting facility here but to save money they closed it...... A 2 day delivery now takes 4-6 days.
Click to expand...
Used to have smaller sort facilities in the area, back then you would would get mail next day if it was dropped off before collection time. 3-4 years ago they closed all the smaller sort facilities and all mail from at least eastern half the state goes to Omaha to be sorted. will take at least 3-4 days to send something to my next door neighbor if sent USPS, that is if it gets processed "on time".

Couple years had a check from someone I was contracted by that took about 5-6 weeks to arrive. Was post marked in Omaha the day before it was delivered, all that means is that is when it finally got processed, who knows why or how it sat there not being processed all that time.
 
USPS is still pretty reliable. It was only earlier this year that a check I was expecting in the mail came late, and it came in one of those little clear we're sorry baggies with the envelope and check torn in half... Got caught in their sorting machine.

I once sent a money order to Tampa Florida from Virginia... It took 11 days to arrive. I have sent International packages to Perth Australia that took less time.

Just this last week though, my wife sent her daughter a ring Next Day Air through the US Postal Service... It arrived in Phoenix Arizona, and was promptly shipped 400 miles in the wrong direction... My wife got a refund of the $40 shipping fee. Her daughter got her birthday present two days late.
 
K8MHZ said:
... all my bills are done on line. It's so much easier.
Click to expand...

Not for me. I raise hell when a company switches me to "paperless billing" without my consent. I miss emails. I have no desire to check it for important stuff that regularly. There's too much fluff to filter through, and I'll see the email at a time that I'm not ready to actually sit down and pay the bill.

It's a lot easier to throw out junk mail on the way into the house, and stack real bills, and pay them off the stack when I get to it. I'll pay online, but I want the paper bill on my desk.
 
readydave8 said:
...But if they doing that bad of a job, why isn't anyone competing?
Click to expand...

You do know it's run by the government, right? Why would anyone try to compete with that?

It was set up during a time when that may have been the only way to have such a vital service. Unions keep it there.

It's set up weirdly, and I don't remember all the details of its charter, but I do know that post offices are not considered "federal facilities" like the IRS and SSA offices are, etc.
 
The USPS is one of the few government agencies that operates in the black... I remember a few years ago the outcry because they were diverting postal worker pensions and what not into Social Security and other programs.
 
JFletcher said:
USPS is still pretty reliable.
Click to expand...

Reliable and practical are not the same thing. USPS is reliable in that what I mail typically gets delivered, but not practical in the fact that it takes 5 days for local letters to reach their destination. Again, they're missing the big picture.

JFletcher said:
The USPS is one of the few government agencies that operates in the black...
Click to expand...

Their postage rates keep going up, I wonder if that's a coincidence.....
 
MAC702 said:
Not for me. I raise hell when a company switches me to "paperless billing" without my consent. I miss emails. I have no desire to check it for important stuff that regularly. There's too much fluff to filter through, and I'll see the email at a time that I'm not ready to actually sit down and pay the bill.

It's a lot easier to throw out junk mail on the way into the house, and stack real bills, and pay them off the stack when I get to it. I'll pay online, but I want the paper bill on my desk.
Click to expand...
One of my first bad experiences with "automatic billing" was before internet was a big thing. I applied for a health insurance policy, they wanted a cancelled check at application to get banking information for automatic billing. Took seemingly forever to get any response on application status, when finally did it was a notification (USPS mailed) stating they were going to draft my account for a huge amount that I didn't have at the time. Talked to the agent and he said you were covered from the application date - nice to know that I was paying for something I didn't know I had:( Ever since then I have been leery of automatic payments - they take what they want and if something is wrong ask questions later.

readydave8 said:
I've noticed slow mail lately

But it's hard to tell since so many use it as excuse

But if they doing that bad of a job, why isn't anyone competing?
Click to expand...
The main competition is not in "first class" non tracked services. I don't think anyone is interested in that kind of service that delivers daily to every address out there.

Living in rural area, when I get something from UPS, Fedex or others, they drive directly to addresses they have something to deliver to. USPS carrier drives same route every day, even if they don't have anything to deliver to an address, they will stop and pick up anything you do have to send. There is mass mailings that come all the time that go to every address available along with plenty of junk mail addressed to specific entities, so there aren't many days where there is nothing to deliver to most addresses anyway. My wife was a substitute rural mail carrier for a short time a few years ago, you have something to deliver to nearly every address on the route almost every day, a lot of it is "junk mail".
 
Recently I’d been looking for a check on an invoice someone owed to me. I called the guy to ask if he’d mailed it yet, and was told the postal carrier picked it up from him the day after I left the invoice. He lives about 3 miles from the office.

Anyway a few more days go by and I’m starting to think maybe he wasn’t honest about when he mailed it, but was embarrassed to tell me that and mailed it the day I called.

Check finally arrives; post mark matched what he told me alright. Almost 14 days to get it to me through the mail.

But that’s really rare. I think it fell under a sorting table or under a seat somewhere.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
LarryFine said:
If I'm not mistaken, it's illegal for any other entity to deliver first-class mail.
Click to expand...

You are correct. Probably the vast majority of what FedEx delivers falls under the monopoly granted to the USPS and if they really wanted to they could go after both the customers and FedEx for violating it.
 
MAC702 said:
You do know it's run by the government, right? Why would anyone try to compete with that?
Click to expand...

yes I knew was government

but am confused because it is supposed to be self-supporting and not use tax dollars?

I tried to read up on that one time but never really understood what's going on (and didn't really care a whole lot, just curious)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top