USPS

USPS does NOT use US tax dollars. It is 100% funded by it's sales of postage and services.

Point 1:
Unlike the private shippers, USPS does not own it's own aviation fleet.
USPS mail flies on commercial flights, and is entirely based on availability of space. Flights are down 45.9% since March 16.

Point 2: The new Postmaster General has enacted unprecedented, and entirely unnecessary network cuts Nationwide.
Transportation has been cut dramatically. Hasps, Hubs, transfer-points have been reworked and service has suffered. That is a fact.
(Seeing how he has over $10M invested in direct USPS competitors, make of his moves what you will. Quite a conflict.)

Point 3: This year's holiday package volume is far higher than ever before (at least by 35-45% so far).
People who will not be travelling are mailing. We also deliver the bulk of Amazon and UPS packages.
The volume has gotten so high, we have had to abandon the practice of acceptance scanning entirely in our office.
Delivery still gets scans, but the outgoing stuff is too heavy. We don't have the people or the time.

Add to that the cuts in ground transportation and the lack of commercial flights and you have a nightmare scenario. There are entire post offices and district administrative offices shut down because of employee COVID contractions and quarantines.

We have 9 clerks in my office. 4 Distribution and 5 Retail/Admin. 47 carrier routes and one Auxiliary. Our township has a population of 50,000+.
Our seasonal "Christmas Helpers" didn't show up again for the second year in a row. Our window of operation runs from when the first 2 clerks come in at 11pm until the last one leaves around 9pm the next night.

Today 12/14 we had over 14,000 packages (Not even counting letter mail and envelopes). Double our previous single-day record. Most carriers have been working 12-14 hour days, and all the clerks, as well. Six days a week. Some work Sundays too.
The lines at our retail window wrap around our building with social distancing. People have to line up outside.

This is my 20th Xmas at USPS, and by far the worst. The 3 of us in Retail have a workload that was done by 8 people just 4 years ago.
Since they restructured the pay-scale a few years ago, the retention rate of new Letter-Carriers is below 30%. The vast majority resign within 6 months.

you are right they don't take tax dollars, usps gets bailed out every year by the fed. ups and fedex turn a profit how come the usps can't. you are right about the retention rate of letter carriers, in the city i'm in we always have new carriers and the ones that have been there awhile are saying to hell with it i'm done.
 
How is a seller supposed to know if a buyer really didn't get a package when USPS screws up the delivery? With USPS, no picture of the package on the porch, no GPS tracking of the vehicle for verification, no accountability. In my situation, I didn't get what I ordered because the USPS didn't deliver it to the correct address, but the seller has my money and "proof" that USPS delivered. USPS basically just stole my property and gave it to someone else and my recourse is limited. All I can do at this point is dispute the credit card charge or hope that whoever received it is honest enough to bring it to me.
 
Yes, same here, a gift for my wife, ordered through a large retailer.

Previously this year, due I assume to "Covid excuses", I have paid for 2 items I did not receive, both shipped through USPS. I have been unsuccessful at relcaiming the funds I lost, as well.

Interesting times...

Is a joke. I ordered a pedal on 12/7. I ordered from a nearby retailer because I thought I'd get it quickly. The retailer is roughly 100 miles away and, according to Google maps, less than a two-hour drive.

Here it is a week later and it still hasn't arrived. Took five days just to get to the local hub. Had I known the seller was going to use USPS I would've just ordered from Sweetwater.
 
I just ordered a psu for my sound card from the U.S Greensboro NC.
it only took Fedex 2 days to deliver it here in France, just amazing!
But in comparison, here too, it's really impressive how much time it takes to send a simple mail a few hundred miles from here.
 
Maybe have a little sympathy? Postal workers have been pulling crazy hours this year. And it's even crazier over the holidays. I talk with my mail lady regularly, and she's stressed AF.
I'm more pissed at UPS. I pay for a tracked shipment, only to have them hand it off to the USPS, which has no effective tracking whatsoever. I'd never use the USPS for anything over $5.
 
I'm more pissed at UPS. I pay for a tracked shipment, only to have them hand it off to the USPS, which has no effective tracking whatsoever. I'd never use the USPS for anything over $5.

For some people like my parents, who live in a very rural area, USPS is the only local game in town. There isn't enough money in it for UPS/FedEx/DHL to be arsed to set up shop in places like that.
 
That is not the point. The sender chose USPS. US residents pay taxes to pay for a USPS. USPS is overworked, understaffed, outdated, abused and taken advantage of by larger shipping companies.
Nope. USPS relies on revenue from stamps and services. NO TAX DOLLARS from us. But I definitely agree with your last sentence, over worked, under staffed, etc, etc, etc.

**The Postal Service receives no direct taxpayer funds. It relies on revenues from stamps and other service fees. Although COVID-19 has choked off the USPS revenue in recent months, factors that arose well before coronavirus have contributed to the unsustainability of the Postal Service's financial situation for years.
 
Over the last 15 years (pre-COVID), I've bought lots of gear and guitars from U.S. sellers, both new and used, and never had an issue with USPS or the USPS to Canada Post hand-off at the border. No issues with shipping, damage, delays, tracking...nothing. Brokerage fees are included in the cost of shipping and they charge normal rates. Depending on the cost of the item, I may have to pay federal tax.

UPS and other carriers, across the border...they are worse than loan sharks when it comes to brokerage fees! Thanks to a class action lawsuit, I was able to get my money back from UPS for their over-inflated brokerage fees, the few times I've used them when I didn't know better and when a seller used their service even after asking them not to. You know it's bad when the UPS driver himself tells you not to use UPS across the border!
 
For some people like my parents, who live in a very rural area, USPS is the only local game in town. There isn't enough money in it for UPS/FedEx/DHL to be arsed to set up shop in places like that.
I looked at the tracking history. What burns me is that the package made it to my neighborhood from across the country, then UPS handed it over to USPS only THREE HOURS before USPS lost it.
 
**The Postal Service receives no direct taxpayer funds. It relies on revenues from stamps and other service fees. Although COVID-19 has choked off the USPS revenue in recent months, factors that arose well before coronavirus have contributed to the unsustainability of the Postal Service's financial situation for years.
I have heard they were forced to pre-fund pensions 75 years in advance by Congress, in an effort to bankrupt them and leave their market share for private companies to monopolize and overcharge....
 
I have heard they were forced to pre-fund pensions 75 years in advance by Congress, in an effort to bankrupt them and leave their market share for private companies to monopolize and overcharge....

this.

financially kneecap the USPS, mess with their operations/sorting, etc....... then point fingers at them saying “see? they’re horrible!”and use that as an excuse to privatize.

very similar playbook for our education system (let’s save that for another thread).
 
you are right they don't take tax dollars, usps gets bailed out every year by the fed. ups and fedex turn a profit how come the usps can't. you are right about the retention rate of letter carriers, in the city i'm in we always have new carriers and the ones that have been there awhile are saying to hell with it i'm done.
(I know I'm right. I have the numbers. Plus things I can't post publicly.)

Not true at all. The USPS has never received any kind of "bailout" not once.

It's a very long story, spanning the last 21+ years, but the USPS is not designed to turn profit.

It had, however, turned a SURPLUS EVERY YEAR until 2007.

What happened in 2007? Aside from the GW Bush administration moving the burden of retired military pensions of employed veterans over to USPS? Well, more disastrously they enacted the BIPARTISAN, and sociopathically-named "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act" in 2006.

This burdened the surplus-heavy USPS with a prefunding mandate to "prefund" retiree benefits 75 years in advance. That means paying for the benefits of employees whom have yet to be born. Interesting idea, and a burden unique to USPS.

It was a $50 BILLION bill, and was supposed to be paid within 10 years.

So, since 2007, USPS has begun every year -$10B in the red. Before they sold one stamp
.

https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/

https://www.chronicleonline.com/opi...cle_fe0610be-ec80-11ea-9028-2322649db91c.html

The legislation was designed to destroy USPS, and it's service. Beyond all else it was designed to allow the "news" to say USPS is "losing money" or "experiencing another loss". This fuels public support for privatization, which is what certain powerful and rich people want for their own benefit.

The bulk of this gets into political realms not welcome on this forum so I digress. However, a lot of the USPS-bashing is based in a combo of public ignorance and well-crafted PR by parties who are putting a lot of funds into pushing for privatization.

They rely on misinformed citizens, as does Governance in general.
 
Sabotage.
SOP for the 'privatize all of the things' goons....
That's EXACTLY correct.

The same thing was done with prisons, toll roads. Now it's being done with public schools and USPS.

These are the same people that will restrict access to water, and then sell it back to us.
They sell us the oil and natural gas because they spent years making it, apparently.

If they could make us pay them for air, rest assured they would.

It's a two-step process.
Step 1 is to defund (or in the case of self-funded USPS) strap with absurd legislation.
Step 2 is the PR war decrying the "mismanagement" and need for privatization.

Because private firms never fail or create financial crises. Never....
 
(I know I'm right. I have the numbers. Plus things I can't post publicly.)

Not true at all. The USPS has never received any kind of "bailout" not once.

It's a very long story, spanning the last 21+ years, but the USPS is not designed to turn profit.

It had, however, turned a SURPLUS EVERY YEAR until 2007.

What happened in 2007? Aside from the GW Bush administration moving the burden of retired military pensions of employed veterans over to USPS? Well, more disastrously they enacted the BIPARTISAN, and sociopathically-named "Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act" in 2006.

This burdened the surplus-heavy USPS with a prefunding mandate to "prefund" retiree benefits 75 years in advance. It was a $50 BILLION bill, and was supposed to be paid within 10 years.

So, since 2007, USPS has begun every year -$10B in the red. Before they sold one stamp
.

https://ips-dc.org/how-congress-manufactured-a-postal-crisis-and-how-to-fix-it/

https://www.chronicleonline.com/opi...cle_fe0610be-ec80-11ea-9028-2322649db91c.html

The legislation was designed to destroy USPS, and it's service. Beyond all else it was designed to allow the "news" to say USPS is "losing money" or "experiencing another loss". This fuels public support for privatization, which is what certain powerful and rich people want for their own benefit.

The bulk of this gets into political realms not welcome on this forum so I digress. However, a lot of the USPS-bashing is based in a combo of public ignorance and well-crafted PR by parties who are putting a lot of funds into pushing for privatization.

They rely on misinformed citizens, as does Governance in general.
I would not be surprised if other areas in government are not suffering similar sabotage, even before Zvezdochka Sorok Pyat put his 'czars' in charge of (destroying) public schools, national parklands, and regulating their buddies' industries
 
I looked at the tracking history. What burns me is that the package made it to my neighborhood from across the country, then UPS handed it over to USPS only THREE HOURS before USPS lost it.
Without seeing your piece's history, there is one thing that's common:

UPS drop shipments come in pallets or bags. Some in the hundreds, some in the multiple thousands per day.

UPS discards the out-of-the-way addresses, so they can refine their routes, use less fuel, overtime, and MAKE MORE MONEY.
USPS charges around $2/ea. for SurePost (Parcel Select). I'm sure you paid UPS more than $2 shipping. UPS thanks you for your money.

The shipments come in and the pieces are attached to an electronic manifest.
When UPS arrives, they scan their manifest saying "I dropped these bags and pallets at USPS' XYZ location".

Every piece attached to that manifest gets a system-generated "Arrived At Local Post Office" or "Transferred To USPS" event.

Here's the rub: Though the piece is attached to the manifest, and the bulk of the shipment is there, there are still usually missing pieces.
Pieces that were supposedly "Transferred To USPS".

Then USPS begins scanning the individual pieces and your mail never actually gets a scan from USPS. Never shows.
The USPS scan you're looking for is "Arrival At Unit". THAT is when it's physically in the USPS.

If you don't see the AAU scan, then USPS are not the ones who lost that package. UPS never dropped it off.

(In my experience, it's quite impossible to lose a package between the loading dock and the carrier parcel-hampers. I assure you. Post Offices are designed to be visually-cleared each day.)

We see this everyday.

UPS and Amazon are drop-ships. They don't travel the USPS Network. There is no way for USPS to lose them. Misdelivered, sure. It happens. Not losses, however. Misdeliveries would have multiple ACTUAL scan events.
 
Without seeing your piece's history, there is one thing that's common:

UPS drop shipments come in pallets or bags. Some in the hundreds, some in the multiple thousands per day.

UPS discards the out-of-the-way addresses, so they can refine their routes, use less fuel, overtime, and MAKE MORE MONEY.
USPS charges around $2/ea. for SurePost (Parcel Select). I'm sure you paid UPS more than $2 shipping. UPS thanks you for your money.

The shipments come in and the pieces are attached to an electronic manifest.
When UPS arrives, they scan their manifest saying "I dropped these bags and pallets at USPS' XYZ location".

Every piece attached to that manifest gets a system-generated "Arrived At Local Post Office" or "Transferred To USPS" event.

Here's the rub: Though the piece is attached to the manifest, and the bulk of the shipment is there, there are still usually missing pieces.
Pieces that were supposedly "Transferred To USPS".

Then USPS begins scanning the individual pieces and your mail never actually gets a scan from USPS. Never shows.
The USPS scan you're looking for is "Arrival At Unit". THAT is when it's physically in the USPS.

If you don't see the AAU scan, then USPS are not the ones who lost that package. UPS never dropped it off.

(In my experience, it's quite impossible to lose a package between the loading dock and the carrier parcel-hampers. I assure you. Post Offices are designed to be visually-cleared each day.)

We see this everyday.

UPS and Amazon are drop-ships. They don't travel the USPS Network. There is no way for USPS to lose them. Misdelivered, sure. It happens. Not losses, however. Misdeliveries would have multiple ACTUAL scan events.
I appreciate your insights into how the system works, or doesn't work. I think I'll wait until after the new year to order anything else.
 
Nope. USPS relies on revenue from stamps and services. NO TAX DOLLARS from us. But I definitely agree with your last sentence, over worked, under staffed, etc, etc, etc.

**The Postal Service receives no direct taxpayer funds. It relies on revenues from stamps and other service fees. Although COVID-19 has choked off the USPS revenue in recent months, factors that arose well before coronavirus have contributed to the unsustainability of the Postal Service's financial situation for years.


I wonder if that is that salary and retirement as well?
 
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