Mad as &$##... not going to take it anymore!

[visiondr]

Please let me vent... and relay a story you may want to heed.

It all began innocently enought as I gave my 50 mm summicron over the United States Postal Service to be delivered across the country. Some of you are probably wincing as you read this already. Rich Pinto at Photo Village in New York had offered to buy it from me. As I handed the well packed box to the clerk, I hesitated, then decided to include $1000 worth of insurance to the Priority Mail cost. Gosh, that was a stroke of inspiration! It's now three weeks and the package is nowhere! I don't have it, Rich doesn't have it and, apparently, the Post Office doesn't have it.

Now, I have to brave the beaurocracy in an attempt to make my claim for the insurance. I am hopping mad !!! I, for one, will never trust an important package to the USPS ever again. I wonder if I should check eSpay to see if my former lens is out there.

That's all I have to say for now.

Thanks for letting me extemporise tonight.

Ron

[back alley]

only ever had a problem with the usps once, a lens arrived broken.
that was in may and it's still not resolved.
joe

[tetrisattack]

On your behalf, I just yelled that out my window.

[dostacos]

trade YA.... I sent my back up Bessa R to Cameraquest to get it's horizontal focus fixed. I don't have it. Stephen does not have it and I LOST THE RECEIPT!:bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang:

[visiondr]

trade YA.... I sent my back up Bessa R to Cameraquest to get it's horizontal focus fixed. I don't have it. Stephen does not have it and I LOST THE RECEIPT!:bang: :bang: :bang: :bang: :bang:

Sorry to hear about your loss (sounds like I'm consoling someone over a loved one's death, doesn't it?)

You know, the thought has crossed my mind that insuring a package for a certain amount of money might actually alert unscrupulous people and convert an amoral bugger into a thief. :bang:

Ron

Please, if anyone has a good thing to say about insurance claims and the USPS... I neeeeed to hear about it.

[flashover]

you think the USPS is bad. I would trade them in a second for Canada Post.

[wlewisiii]

Canada Post is the place where joe & I are still waiting on. USPS recently told me that they were finished months ago and if it had been a domestic delivery the addressee would have been paid long ago.

William

[NL2377]

I sent a check in the mail via USPS Priority weeks ago, and it has still yet to have been found. I've already cancelled the check at my bank, but it's sad, because I can only recieve mail via USPS, otherwise I have to go pick the package up at UPS which is 15mi away.

[back alley]

Canada Post is the place where joe & I are still waiting on. USPS recently told me that they were finished months ago and if it had been a domestic delivery the addressee would have been paid long ago.

William

i not too sure about that.
i sent the last bunch of forms to colorado, to the usps.
i think they are who we are waiting on.
joe

[wlewisiii]

Lovely. I wish we'd both just get a straight answer from someone. That info was from the claims person at the local PO, so I thought it was correct. Figures...

Still better than the only time I had to fight with UPS though. At least USPS doesn't try to claim nothing was sent and I was fraudulently claiming there was...

William

[Gabriel M.A.]

A package from Milwaukee took 12 days to get to Minneapolis (it finally arrived last week)

Only nonindustrialized countries are supposed to have a postal system that is as efficient as plotting fractals using an abacus.

[ampguy]

do a green delivery confirmation for $0.50 and/or a signature confiration for about $1.00 ??

At what point did it fall of the web tracking site?

Please let me vent... and relay a story you may want to heed.

It all began innocently enought as I gave my 50 mm summicron over the United States Postal Service to be delivered across the country. Some of you are probably wincing as you read this already. Rich Pinto at Photo Village in New York had offered to buy it from me. As I handed the well packed box to the clerk, I hesitated, then decided to include $1000 worth of insurance to the Priority Mail cost. Gosh, that was a stroke of inspiration! It's now three weeks and the package is nowhere! I don't have it, Rich doesn't have it and, apparently, the Post Office doesn't have it.

Now, I have to brave the beaurocracy in an attempt to make my claim for the insurance. I am hopping mad !!! I, for one, will never trust an important package to the USPS ever again. I wonder if I should check eSpay to see if my former lens is out there.

That's all I have to say for now.

Thanks for letting me extemporise tonight.

Ron

[triplefinger]

DHL, Fed-Ex... i find them worth the extra bucks for important stuff. Admittedly, I have been lucky with the USPS

[ARCHIVIST]

Living in Australia and buying photo gear out of the US ( eBay and shop purchaes ) I have used USPS quite a lot, both air and surface. I have lost 3 items over the past 5 years. With one of these I phoned a USPS office in the state the item was lost, when e-mails failed to attract a reply, and complained. To this I received the most arogant reply...." we are the USPS and we do not lose itmes". My reply can not be printed here!

Regards
Peter

[bmicklea]

you think the USPS is bad. I would trade them in a second for Canada Post.

Tragically I have to agree. They really do make USPS employees look like diligent, hard working and dedicated individuals.

I lived in Japan for a couple of years and still wish that the Japanese government would just openly take over every postal system in the world. We'd be much better off...

[visiondr]

do a green delivery confirmation for $0.50 and/or a signature confiration for about $1.00 ??

Green delivery conf. only (bloody cheapskate... me!)

At what point did it fall of the web tracking site?

It was scanned in here in Portland and that is all.

Ron

[40oz]

Let's be realistic. I worked for a law firm for a couple years. I sent dozens of items every day both regular post and registered, and nothing was ever "lost." I worked as a shipping clerk for a number of years for a couple different organizations. Roughly once a month UPS would "lose" a package, according to the recipient and sender. After a quick call to the UPS center, I was always able to get a signer's name (and once a fax of the signature), and track down said person in a matter of minutes and find said "lost" package.

FedEx once let a pallet of boxes of paper goods sit outside in a rainstorm on a runway, and resolving the issue was a PITA, but resolved it was, and everyone was at least mildly appeased, if not happy.

It is quite possible, depending on packaging, for the address label to fall off/tear off/otherwise disappear, thereby rendering a package undeliverable unless the sender had the foresight to include an address form inside the package. As far as insurance goes, you might pay for $1 million in insurance, but unless you have documentation of said value, you will only get the market value of the item.

Moral of the story - include an address inside the package, don't wrap a box in paper for shipping, and don't over-insure. Nobody is infallible, modern shipping is in all likelihood much more reliable than ever, but systems involving machines and humans run at the product of the failure rate of both men and machines. Recovery from failure, however, depends soley on mere mortals, so be kind.

[ClaremontPhoto]

Somebody stole my (decent) watch going in for service. I've given the watch company the serial number and asked then to 'watch' out for it.

[Dfin]

Sorry to read about your loss, and it is a bit like loosing a member of the family. I have recently bought 4 items locally, 3 battery converters from the Yashic Guy and all have arrived on time and intact. Here in Australia postal workers are not the most highly paid and are under pressure to perform, ie. sort 18 letters/minute. So mistakes are going to happen. I know this doesn`t excuse or compensate for your loss, but thieves exist in all companies and organisations. Hopfully inusurance will cover your loss.

[Hiyawaan]

I agree, UPS sucks! I rented five un-operational WW I rifles, accessories and uniforms for a comercial shoot from an LA rental house and UPS lost them.Only clothes and accesories showed up. Luckily the rental house insisted on $5000 insurance so we were saved but the shoot suffered. I now use DHL.

[HuubL]

Tragically I have to agree. They really do make USPS employees look like diligent, hard working and dedicated individuals.

I lived in Japan for a couple of years and still wish that the Japanese government would just openly take over every postal system in the world. We'd be much better off...

Japan is best. Packages from the US take about 14 days to arrive in the Netherlands. Farther away Japan gets them at my door in 4-5 days (that includes a weekend)!

[IGMeanwell]

I sent an ebay item out... on the 12th with insured (no delivery confirmation :( ) Priority Mail

Well I just got an email today from the buyer asking for the the tracking number!! I am thinking oh God that camera better be getting to California soon or I'm going to go Postal @##$!!!

I have the insurance receipt but now I am very nervous

Edit: For the record USPS tracking is a joke, it will say scanned for delivery but nothing else (it even says on the site that it means the postal service received the shipping information but does not mean delivered)... hell I just check the tracking number on an item that was delivered on monday and it says its still out for delivery? really nice

[matt fury]

Seriously, as far as it goes, USPS Priority & Express Mail is pretty damn reliable. Yes, things happen, but overall your packages are usually pretty safe. I'm involved with a few cigar bulletin boards, and over there they basically always use Priority Mail with DC, and it's VERY rare for a box to disappear. And when you factor in the low low price you pay for the speed of delivery, it's an impossible deal to beat.

Delivery Confirmation is not supposed to be tracking, however, which is why it sucks for tracking. If you send something Express Mail however, it will be tracked. Express is another awesome service. They will deliver just about every day of the year, Saturdays & Sundays included for no extra charge. Try sending a letter out on a Friday via FedEx or UPS overnight service and see what that will cost you..if they'll even do it.

[Marc-A.]

DHL, Fed-Ex... i find them worth the extra bucks for important stuff. Admittedly, I have been lucky with the USPS

I second that. DHL is great, not too expensive. Fed-Ex is also great, but way more expensive. Ukrainian Post is the best .... :D
Marc

[rxmd]

Ukrainian Post is the best ....
Actually Gevorg Vartanyan told me that UkrPoshta (http://www.ukrposhta.com) has a lower loss rate on parcels than USPS.

I wonder if this is before or after you've bribed your mailman, though. When I tell this to any of the Ukrainians I know they all shake their heads and burst out laughing.

Philipp

[fgianni]

Only nonindustrialized countries are supposed to have a postal system that is as efficient as plotting fractals using an abacus.

LMAO, that's a good one!

[ClaremontPhoto]

I'm planning to EMS internationally next week as it's much cheaper then DHL and easier to access. Has anybody used EMS?

[Trius]

Green delivery conf. only (bloody cheapskate... me!)



It was scanned in here in Portland and that is all.

Ron
Call me stupid, but if you mean that USPS only has a record of it being accepted in Portland, and doesn't have a record of it moving any further through the system, then .... yeah, I'll bet it was snagged right there.

If that is the case then unfortunately the suspiciion that the insruance value alerted a thief may be correct. While this can happen with any carrier, I'd be surprised if USPS weren't the "leader", and it does seem that posts in forums confirm that collecting is a long, frustrating process. Maybe you should go get a root canal to put it all in perspective! :bang:

40oz: With all due respect, why would any service even THINK of stealing something that's been touched by a lawyer? :D

Earl

[kshapero]

I was in an unnamed country, not US of A, and the mailman had just picked up a package from me to go back to the States. A couple minutes later I left my apartment to do errands. I turn the first corner and what do I see? The Mailman is negoiating the sale of my parcel to some unsavory person. I yell out and the mailman, thankfully, drops the package and he and the other guy run off. Luckily I found a FedEx later that day.

[shiro_kuro]

Japan is best. Packages from the US take about 14 days to arrive in the Netherlands. Farther away Japan gets them at my door in 4-5 days (that includes a weekend)!
lol ...I sent a package from Japan to Boston 4 months ago .....never got there ... They told me to please wait sometimes it takes extra time ..... anyway hope things work out for you .

[Pherdinand]

Huub,
Depends, what kind of package. I ordered the LensWork CD and arrived in FIVE days. It was a small package (not a letter)...

[raid]

I "lost" one time a Tele Rolleiflex TLR camera sent to Germany. It arrived broken in the mail.We had a hard time getting any money from the USPS. First,we were told that the German Post should take care of it, then we were told that the camera should be repaired. I still had the ebay ad online so I made a copy of the selling price as my "receipt". Then USPS paid $300 or so.
I was baffled that even though I had all receipts and had the item insured, this did not mean much.

There is no replacement for collector's items at market value. As you know, a mintish Rolleifelx can bnng in twice as much as an excellent Rolleiflex. Now consider a broken Rolleiflex!

I heard that UPS pays up much more readily the insurance amount than USPS.
Of course, for best results, use Express Mail [as mentioned above].


Raid

[JoeFriday]

my experience has been that the USPS is just like any other government agency.. forever passing the buck, and the service is only as good as the least dedicated person directly involved in your transaction.. I used to send paperwork via their Express Delivery until a postal worker I knew explained that it was mostly a scam where they charge extra but treat it exactly the same as any other package

every package I send by USPS is considered 'lost' from the moment I hand it over until the moment I get confirmation from the recipient that it arrived in good condition.. if I need to be absolutely sure a package will arrive, I always use FedEx, or occasionally UPS.. neither of them have ever lost a package of mine, or even delivered one late.. whereas the USPS offers only the guarantee that you might be compensated months later if (or rather WHEN) they screw up.. and only if your DNA sample matches their dubious records

[dostacos]

oH JOY Stephen just told me the camera is fouind and repaired yeah....:D :D :D :D :D :D

[dostacos]

You know, the thought has crossed my mind that insuring a package for a certain amount of money might actually alert unscrupulous people and convert an amoral bugger into a thief. :bang:

Ron

and that is why I send a brick insured for $500 twice a month, just hoping they loose it:eek:

[John Camp]

My daughter has a friend in NY working as a photographer's assistant. She wanted to get started in digital, and I had a Kodak SLRn that I wasn't using because I'd upgraded to a D2x. So I sent her the SLRn via overnight USPS Express Mail. The tracking service showed it leaving St. Paul, but never showed it arriving in NY. The next day, it was no-show in NY. I went to the local post office to inquire and was told that they'd had a big snow storm in NY, everything was snarled up, and if I waited a couple of days, it'd show up. I waited; no show. Then I called the USPS Express Mail center, and was told that I was calling too late -- they could only try to track it if I reported it lost within a day or two. I told them that the local PO had suggested I wait, and their basic answer was, Tell it to somebody who cares. I hadn't insured it because, to tell the truth, I was afraid it'd be stolen. That might sound like weird logic, but I as a kid, I worked as a PO substitute carrier, and one heard strange stories about Chicago and NY mail handling...

In any case, we'd all given up, and exactly one month to the day later, it showed up in New York. The package was pretty beaten up, but the camera was in perfect shape. Who knows where it'd been -- probably on a banana boat to somewhere...



JC

[ray_g]

Reminds me of the Seinfeld episode with Kramer and Neuman taking a joyride in the mail truck.

[eli griggs]

I bought a FED 2 last month off a US seller, no insurance offered, never arrived and seller only refunded purchase price; no postage.:bang:

Overall I've had good luck with the mails so I guess I was due...oh well...:rolleyes:

Cheers,
Eli

[visiondr]

Happy days! The package finally arrived in NYC. Let's see... Left at the post office in Portland, OR on 8/30 and arrives in NY, NY on 9/22... that's 24 days. Way to go USPS.

In the end, I don't think I'll be trusting valuable packages to the venerable USPS in the future. They'll continue to get my basic post.

There's nothing to see here ladies and gentlemen, please go about your business.

Ron

[anabasis]

I ordered my 35 f1.2 Nokton from Stephen at Camera quest in early August to Dallas, TX. A week later USPS tracking had it at my post office after a failed delivery attempt. After about 10 trips to the post offices of record, and no one ever seeing the package, i had to go to school for 3 weeks. Well the package arrived the end of August and I picked it up the day after Labor Day (early September).

The box was perfectly labeled and readable. After a month in the postal service the corner was bashed it. Fortunately the lens and finder were in good shape. All this was priority mail ("3-5 day delivery" yeah right! it should be 3-5 weeks) insured, tracked, etc.

I like dealing with Stephen, but seriously, I don't want to buy anything from him unless he ships with some other carrier. The idiots between Cali and Dallas just can't be trusted.

JCA

[ZeissFan]

I've bought roughly 500 things from eBay in the past six years. Some were shipped to Hong Kong. They've come from Germany, Japan, the U.K., Autralia, Alaska and all over the U.S.

Two things never showed up: 13.5cm prewar Sonnar and a little Konica C35 rangefinder. I'm hoping that either will appear one day.

I did have Hongkong Post lose a Contessa that I sent to Japan. So overall, not bad.

Even so, the fact that I can write a letter, put a 39-cent stamp on it and put into a box and a few days later it shows up a couple of days at its intended place still amazes me. Best deal you can ever have.

If the worst thing that ever happens to you is that a package is lost, then you've had a pretty good life. If I stopped doing things or using services because something went wrong once, I'd just stay in bed all day.

Guess I'm a "glass half full" person ...

[climbing_vine]

If the worst thing that ever happens to you is that a package is lost, then you've had a pretty good life. If I stopped doing things or using services because something went wrong once, I'd just stay in bed all day.


Absolutlely. I've used the USPS heavily for fifteen years, and the only problem I ever had was a letter that I sent to Baltimore in about 1992 that took two weeks to get there instead of the usual three days or so. I've never sent anything locally and had it not show up the next day, either.

UPS, on the other hand, is nothing but a nightmare nearly every time I have to deal with them. There's an old joke about postal employees taking "Fragile" as a challenge--well, I've only had the problem with UPS. They demolish everything, at least, the packages that ever actually get within 50 miles of where they're supposed to be delivered.

Never had a problem with FedEx. Or DHL for that matter, when I used to work on a loading dock for a business that used them heavily for special orders.

[Al Patterson]

Two weeks ago I purchased something from a fellow RFF member. It still hasn't arrived. I blame the unnamed delivery agency to whom the shipper entrusted the item.

Now, I'm sure it will get here eventually, but the Pony Express in the 1800's seemed to deliver things faster than the "modern" postal service(s).

[Athos6]

Makes me want to apply for a grant to do a study. Send packages with High value insurance and gps tracking units. See how many get to where they are going. Seems like a good portion of us have had things stolen, it would be nice to get some payback. Stealing mail is a federal crime, it would be fun to send people to jail for trying to steal my baby (read camera).

[David Murphy]

The main thing is to always get USPS Delivery Confirmation -- about 50 cents. This allows limited tracking to locate it or see if it has been delivered to the wrong address, or delivered at all. You can file an insurance claim with USPS after six weeks (this is considered lost). Be aggressive about the claim. USPS insurance is now handled by an outside company and they don't like to pay claims. For one thing you have to prove the worth of the item through sales receipts, etc. There is no point buying more insurance than the true replacement value, because you have to really justify that. The insurance processing can take weeks to months in my experience.

My guess is that the item will show up or be returned to you shortly.

Despite your problems, in my experience UPS and FedEx are worse for the small shipper in nearly every respect than USPS. I can elaborate on that if need be.

[endustry]

I never use insurance. It just seems to draw attention to the packages and USPS insurance is pretty useless anyway as the process seems to take forever and, like other insurers, they try anything they can to disqualify claims. I do use the pink 'signature required' slips, though. The mailcarriers seem to take these a little more seriously than the yellow "delivery confirmation' ones which seem to confirm little other than the fact that the guy left the box on the steps and then walked off.