What the "H" is wrong with U.S.P.S.

[Major Tom]

Several times in the past few months, I have mailed payments to cover my bills. Then these companies call and demand or ask 'Where is your payment'. Mail is being lost somewhere? And stamps rise in cost at least once a year! Home mail delivery is sporadic at best. We receive mail anytime between 8am and 7pm. Used to set my watch when the mail man would show up!

[shadycon]

Are you mailing directly to the company or to a 3rd party collection/clearing company which in turn pays the intended company?

[Allen]

Also check the date on your canceled checks. Some companies claim they don't receive payments on time to charge extra fees. Sears use to be really bad about that. I always paid my balance in full on my Sears CC but on the following statement it showed where the payment was "late" and they charged penalty and interest on the previous months balance. My checks always cleared the bank way before their closing dates. One day I was at the local Sears in a big mall. There was a long line of people trying to pay for their purchases. What had the line held up was the cashier was trying to sell every one of them a Sears CC account. I told the crowd how Sears operated. The line moved much faster after that with most people laughing and a very pissed cashier. I had mortgage companies operate they same way. As far as the USPS goes, long ago in small towns every one knew one another. Your mail carrier might have been your neighbor and misdirecting mail would have been considered mail fraud. Now days, like most government jobs, there is no accountability and a lot of these jobs are part time to prevent having to pay insurance and other benefits. I am on a rural route and often get other peoples mail. I suppose they get mine too. I notice it sometimes when viewing the tracking of a package I'm expecting. It will show delivered, the next day it may show it in a neighboring town and maybe a few days later I will actually receive it. When I have something important to mail such as a tax return I go to the post office and have them hand stamp it and witness them tossing it into the outgoing mail bin. The fewer people that handle your mail from point "A" to point "B" the better. Packages often get damaged too. The USPS does not have their own planes like UPS and FedEx so mail and packages get loaded on commercial flights using airport personnel. When something arrives damaged no one knows a thing about it. The last rifle I bought through Gun Broker arrived severely damaged. I contacted the seller about making a claim and he said he ships about 100 guns a year and does not buy the USPS insurance because the PO will NOT pay. We agreed on a $100 credit against my CC for the damage and me not returning the gun.

Our tax dollars at work.

[lyman]

allen,

paragraphs are your friend,



USPS is regional , as far as service,

I have good service out of my post office,

I also have 4 post offices within 10 miles of my shop,

each has its own unique personality, and customer service level,


I have had really good service from USPS, much much better than UPS or FedEx (USPS Priority is my main method of shipping in my shop)

having said all that, my wife's employer stopped using USPS to mail anything, simply because most of what they mailed seems to get lost, misplaced, or just late
several calls and visits to the post office were fruitless , so now everything they mail goes UPS,

[Allen]

my wife's employer stopped using USPS to mail anything, simply because most of what they mailed seems to get lost, misplaced, or just late
several calls and visits to the post office were fruitless , so now everything they mail goes UPS,

That pretty much sums up what I said about the USPS. They use to provide a jam up service and mostly still do but when you encounter a problem they are pretty much worthless. Their overall attitude is "oh well".

Guess what happens when you mail a USPS MO and they lose it? You bought the MO at the PO. You paid the PO to deliver it. They lose it. You have a pissed off seller on the other end who doesn't believe you sent payment. You go to the PO and fill out a form to get reimbursed. They charge you for this form (somewhere around $4). You get your $ back after 90 days but no reimbursement of your paid postage, MO cost or money for the form. It isn't the cost but the principal behind it. This has happened twice for me so far.

No one is perfect and not much is guaranteed but when you receive a torn up, wet box with no contents the PO knows they are the ones responsible and should try to make things right instead of "here's your package, guess it got destroyed some where down the line".

At some point insurance by any carrier should be reduced and easier to collect. If you take your car in for service and pay the mechanic for repairs do you need to pay him extra money to do the job correctly? Same way with the carriers, you pay for their services to deliver. You shouldn't have to pay extra to make sure it get's there, you're already paying for that.

As far as misdirected mail goes, I am currently battling the IRS over $5,000 they say I owe and I say I don't. I paid the money when requested because they were charging me interest on the "owed" money even before settling the dispute. Anyway, every time I get a letter from them (been going on for a year and a half now) they say I must reply back within 30 days or so or the case is closed, which they are desperately wanting to do. All they have to say is they didn't receive my correspondence so I always reply having my letter tracked and signed by them so they can't deny anything. A person shouldn't have to do this though.

[Sunray]

"...Used to..." That'd be the key. Your bank statement, assuming you get one, will tell you when a cheque cleared your account. No statement? Your bank will tell you for the asking with a service fee in most cases.
Home mail delivery is slowly being phased out up here. Any new subdivision and a lot of old neighbourhoods have "super" mail boxes now. Essentially a set of boxes at the end of the street.

[Clark Howard]

Walk in your local Post Office and look at the people employed there. Most are family members of prominent dems who cannot get work in the economy. There is an office at both ends of your mail, and the odds are against both being competent.

[Major Tom]

I mail payments directly to the companies. I have never received cancelled/paid checks in my bank statements. Therefore the payments were lost by U.S.P.S.

[Allen]

I mail payments directly to the companies. I have never received cancelled/paid checks in my bank statements. Therefore the payments were lost by U.S.P.S.

Wow, you have a bigger problem than I realized. You may want to contact the postmaster in your local office or regional office. If it is reoccurring at the same companies they need to put tracking numbers on your mail to see where things are getting derailed. Of course they will charge YOU for this service. It may be incompetence at the companies end and not the mail service.

It's a pain but if it were me I suppose I would look into paperless payments via bank transfers, on-line payments or payments using your CC. More and more businesses are offering this now. Personally I don't care for auto-pay though. I don't like for others (3rd parties) to have access of my checking account.

I bank with 2 local banks. One is large enough to offer a 1-800 number (recording) to check on cleared checks. At the other bank, I can call and speak to one of the tellers or anyone else to look up my account and tell me what recent checks have cleared and when. You don't have to wait for the mailed statement.

Good luck, you've got a mess on your hands.

[USMilitaryGuy]

I was speaking with a lady yesterday. She was telling me about her internet provider. It seems she frequently is without service. Of course, she doesn't know she is without service until she tries to use the internet.

When she discovers she has no service, she calls the "number" - which most definitely does not ring in the office downtown. They take her complaint and will "take care of it". Eventually the local office sends out some repair technicians to fix the problem. They can't find the problem - and determine it fixed. Still no service.

In the meantime, she is trying to pay her bills on-line but cannot contact her bank or the creditors. She can't pay her bills and starts to receive late payment notices - in the mail. One of the late payment notices comes from the internet provider.

She goes to the downtown office and asks the nice lady behind the counter. The nice lady admits there is a problem with the "system" and her neighbors don't have service either.

The service technicians can't fix the problem at the house because the problem is NOT AT THE HOUSE!

The provider is not attempting to fix the problem because . . . . . who knows.

The late payment fee still stands.

She is changing her provider. Most likely they will lose more customers. They will go out of business. Service technicians will lose their jobs. Somebody will complain about the lack of available service providers in the area. Nobody will say what the actual problem was. Of course, the actual problem was the poor service provided.