View Full Version : US Postal Service (USPS) delays getting to be extreme - FYI vendors and purchasers
As a cottage gear maker, I use first class mail for 95% of my shipments. Things are getting really crazy with the postal service. Only one of 18 packages I’ve mailed in the last 10 days has been scanned as received by USPS. I’m actually considering closing shop until the holidays are over. When packages have not been scanned, the tracking info makes it look like I have not sent them out. Northeast Ohio, where I am, is apparently one of the worst areas. See this from the front page of our newspaper today: https://plaindealer-oh.newsmemory.com/?publink=10e5850f6 (https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/xB_VCOYkApSpM5g9ZTE2Ef0?domain=plaindealer-oh.newsmemory.com)
Unfortunately, USPS is normally understaffed, but now also has additional staff out due to Covid, record holiday mail volumes, and overflow packages dumped from FedEX, UPS, and even Amazon. Packages are piling up all over the country and scanning of tracking numbers is often skipped. I’m seeing usual 3-5 day delivery times take up to 3-5 weeks in some cases. Terrible, terrible, terrible.
I know that complaining won't help me, but I feel better now. :)
Two Tents
12-17-2020, 16:53
It's been bad lately. I'm waiting 21 days today for a small padded envelope from the UK.
peakbagger
12-17-2020, 17:45
Yup, I have a package indicating that it was never tracked beyond the initial setup of the shipment. I told the shipper I would get in touch if it has not showed up after the first of the year.
Sadly the new postal service administrator will be hanging around long after the inauguration.
Things do seem to have really bogged down in the past week. I have a few packages in the system that 1) show no tracking detail and 2) very little movement. This is all either USPS First-Class or FedEx Ground. I wonder, is USPS still sticking to their 2-3 day timeframe for Priority items?
One Half
12-17-2020, 20:01
Yup, I have a package indicating that it was never tracked beyond the initial setup of the shipment. I told the shipper I would get in touch if it has not showed up after the first of the year.
Sadly the new postal service administrator will be hanging around long after the inauguration.
It really has nothing to do with the current administrator. It has to do with EXTREME mail volumes due to Covid as well as covid getting some of the carriers, mail handlers, drivers, etc.
Last Saturday we got a Thanksgiving card. Granted MIL didn't mail it until Dec 1 (according to postmark) but that's 11 days. Yesterday we received a letter from our son in basic training that he sent on the 5th. Another 11 days. However, the cherry on top was today receiving the letter he sent on the 1st. That's 16 days!
He comes home tomorrow for holiday block leave. At this rate, we will be getting letters he wrote this week after he goes back to the base in January.
I spoke with my brother. He's a mail carrier in NH. He told me last week that their normal MAX is 50 tractor trailers a night plus Amazon packages of what can get sorted. They have been getting 80+ trailers every night. When I spoke to him on the 12th he told me they had a backlog of 100+ trailers. And it doesn't look like it's going to get better any time soon.
But hey, shut down all the businesses. Force people to order online because stores are shut down or there are huge lines because of social distancing and new covid capacity rules. Then the mail system gets flooded. Everyone gets upset. Congress will demand that USPS be allowed to hire more people. And BINGO, more government jobs! Woo Hoo!!!
One Half
12-17-2020, 20:02
Things do seem to have really bogged down in the past week. I have a few packages in the system that 1) show no tracking detail and 2) very little movement. This is all either USPS First-Class or FedEx Ground. I wonder, is USPS still sticking to their 2-3 day timeframe for Priority items?
No. My brother also said, on the 12th, that they have been told to advise people that any package they want to arrive before Christmas they need to ship it Priority EXPRESS. This costs 3x more than priority.
HooKooDooKu
12-17-2020, 22:43
Have a package that I've been tracking that finally arrived today.
The tracking history shows it arrived at the local primary sorting facility and then sat there for 4 days before it left routed to the local postoffice.
I think there has been an issue with first class for some time. I bought something on ebay from ME shipped using first class. This was early November. It took 2 weeks to receive. My tracking said it took 2 days to come from Columbus, 45 miles away. Other priority packages I received later in the month took 2-3 days.
Traveler
12-18-2020, 07:38
Ripping out sorting machines from high volume mail centers and devolving into hand sorting processes probably didn't help much.
greensleep
12-18-2020, 12:27
Ripping out sorting machines from high volume mail centers and devolving into hand sorting processes probably didn't help much.
Along with removing dropboxes. Luckily, the sabotage was caught before complete service failure.
Package I ordered on Nov 27 arrived Dec 15. Another one I pd extra for 2-3 day delivery and arrived 5 days later. Have a Merry Christmas everyone.
Ripping out sorting machines from high volume mail centers and devolving into hand sorting processes probably didn't help much.
Along with removing dropboxes. Luckily, the sabotage was caught before complete service failure.
Thank you. Don’t forget stopping paying overtime which was also corrected (not by the Postmaster’s choice) before complete service failure. I’m sure the unprecedented volume isn’t helping but the changes the current Postmaster enacted aren’t helping either. Almost immediately after these changes went into effect (August) I ceased getting my mail every day. I only get it 4 or 5 days per week. And it arrives after 7:00PM. Not a coincidence.
One Half
12-18-2020, 13:00
I think there has been an issue with first class for some time. I bought something on ebay from ME shipped using first class. This was early November. It took 2 weeks to receive. My tracking said it took 2 days to come from Columbus, 45 miles away. Other priority packages I received later in the month took 2-3 days.
And today we are getting a card from MIL that only took 4 days from the postal stamp date. I really do thin it's all a matter of randomness at this point.
One Half
12-18-2020, 13:03
Ripping out sorting machines from high volume mail centers and devolving into hand sorting processes probably didn't help much.
didn't happen. just the opposite. USPS has been automating for many years. This is one of the points of contention with the unions. as more things get automated, people lose their jobs. Unions don't like that.
One Half
12-18-2020, 13:09
Thank you. Don’t forget stopping paying overtime which was also corrected (not by the Postmaster’s choice) before complete service failure. I’m sure the unprecedented volume isn’t helping but the changes the current Postmaster enacted aren’t helping either. Almost immediately after these changes went into effect (August) I ceased getting my mail every day. I only get it 4 or 5 days per week. And it arrives after 7:00PM. Not a coincidence.
They do pay overtime but one of the changes they made was to start the carriers at the post office later. My brother no longer has an hour and a half at the PO each morning before the mail actually gets dropped to them for final sorting to his route. Now he shows up and the mail is there at his "station." No free 90 minute coffee break.
And for decades they have been making the routes longer as mail volume dropped. So a small town with 6 carriers dropped down to 5 carrier routes type of thing. I worked in a small town PO with 8 drop boxes around town. It took close to an hour to drive to all of them and most days all but 2 of them were empty. And the 2 that were used had a combined total of less than a bin of mail. And the 2 that were actually used? they were the ones that were in the highest traffic areas near the center of town and the ones outside the PO itself. It is kind of hard to find a drop box these days and I some times worry when I use the one closest to me that it isn't actually checked every day so I usually go to the post office and drop off letters at the box outside the PO.
Just to add to the other issues was that storm Wed. night into yesterday. With snowfalls of 20-40" through much of NY and into New England it didn't help with the backlogs. We had at the lower end and had no mail delivered at all yesterday, so that's just that much more that has to be caught up (not that it was surprising or unexpected, since there are still streets not cleared in the area as of the news this noontime, which makes it pretty hard for anyone to deliver anything!).
To be expected every December.
Alligator
12-18-2020, 14:48
That got political pretty quickly. Your coal is estimated to arrive after Jan. 8.