I live in a rural county where the mailboxes are all at the street, all on the same side of the 55 MPH country roads. I gotta watch how I drive, because every road is full of blind curves heading down hills, and there could always be someone crossing the street getting their mail. It makes me cringe to think of it. Regarding public mailboxes: I noticed that a couple of weeks ago when I forgot to put a letter in my mailbox and tried to find a public one in town. They seem to be going the way of pay telephones.
We have home delivery here, where mail delivery comes to the door, but I have a large mailbox (with a flag) mounted just to the side of my door because we're sometimes gone for a week or two at a time, and this is a big box. Flag or not, though, no one picks up our outgoing mail unless they are delivering mail.
Well I've got some meds that arrived at the local distribution center 3 days ago which is about 25 miles form me and will be late getting to me..
We ordered a winter coat, from Kohl's, for my wife. The correct address was put on the order, including our apartment number, but, unfortunately, Kohl's didn't include our apartment number on the address. And, the package was suppose to come to us by way of UPS, but somewhere along the way to Colorado, UPS gave it to USPS. Even a Kohl's Rep didn't understand that. Anyway, we got a USPS Tracking Number and our mail carrier did have the coat here, but, because the package lacked an apartment number, it was returned to our local post office and then taken to Ft. Collins Post Office. That was done on January 30th. Generally, the mail carrier will, if it is open, take a package to the office, but that didn't happen. The Tracking Number doesn't show it being delivered yet. The Kohl's Rep told me yesterday if we don't get the coat by this coming Saturday, we can call and have it replaced. Just wondering if the coat (box/package) is still sitting at the Post Office in Ft. Collins. Tried calling them, but no answer (3 times). Just called our local Post Office and he looked at the scan of the package and told me that an apartment number was on it. So, why it wasn't delivered to us..........have absolutely NO IDEA!!
I placed an Amazon order on Wednesday shortly after midnight. 2 of the 3 items arrived today via USPS, and I got free freight. I've said it before...I am not in an urban area. I gotta find a way to thank the local carriers out here for always doing a good job (although they are the last link in a complex chain.)
If something is order from Amazon, and they have the item/items in local warehouse, the items can be delivered the very next day. That shocked us when we order printer ink and a vitamin and both were delivered the next day.
There is something goofy with that UPS>USPS hand-off. I just had my first Amazon package go through that process. >The UPS website showed that the hand-off occurred, and cited the USPS Tracking ID. >Amazon showed the package as "Undeliverable" and is issuing a refund because they think UPS is sending it back to them. There is no way to contact Amazon to let them know that I received it. I don't understand what drives the need to hand stuff off like that. I've not had it happen before that I'm aware of...I've had lots of stuff delivered here by UPS and have never seen them pass it off to the post office. One would think that if this hand-off is becoming more common, the shipper would give it to the USPS right off the bat and not take the risk of the extra transaction.
I've placed orders on Walmart.com and had the part of it that was stocked locally hand-delivered the same day. And I am not close to the store. I had no idea they did that.
What drives the hand-off is that UPS finds it cheaper to have the USPS deliver to rural addresses than to do it themselves. Many times it is done at a loss, and the USPS absorbs the loss rather than UPS, who is a direct competitor. For many years, neither FedEx nor UPS would deliver here. They tried to pass it off to the Postal Service, but supposedly at the time that was illegal. As time went by, someone somewhere got pressured or paid off, and it became legal to dump the losses onto USPS. We almost never get anything delivered by UPS or FedEx unless it is too large or too heavy for the Postal Service. Many times we have to pay UPS or FedEx charges (which are generally much higher here) and have the package delivered by the Post Office anyway. One of many reasons the USPS has a hard time staying afloat--they are subsidizing their competitors.
Yeh, I had heard of that. But this is the first time I've experienced a hand-off. I track stuff diligently from the moment it ships until the moment it arrives, and what starts with UPS has always stayed with UPS...although it has been a while since anything started with UPS. Perhaps all my packages were larger and I just don't recall. Regarding subsidizing losers: I'm sure you're aware of how the USPS (and its customers) subsidizes freight from China under a circa 1960 U.N. initiative to help "emerging economies." All that garbage we buy from EBay, AliExpress and Amazon that ships from China is carried by the USPS at a loss, even though by some measure China's "emerging economy" has overtaken ours. Just like cockroaches, these programs cannot be killed.
Well, I get a real "LOL" at the new USPS commercial. (Of course, it's the packages singing "I've Been Everywhere." )
My actual service continues to be top-notch. It's the Delivery Notifications from their website that are all goofy. If I ignore the automated tracking data and just go by how the actual chain of custody performs out my way, I give them an A+ As I've said before, in the bog ol' city of Charlottesville just 20 miles up the road. things continue to suck bigly, with only twice-a-month delivery in some areas.
I ordered a book from a 3rd party seller on Amazon. It was shipped USPS and I tracked it traveling back and forth between Dallas and Houston about 5 times before it was delivered. The efficiency!
I wonder if those movements are real. I've had stuff appear at my local P.O. only to have the next status show it at the state capital 50 miles up the road. I don't think their system is "scalable."