MTFCA Forum

I had some of Scott Conger's NH needle and seat assemblies sent to Donnie Brown for inclusion with a radiator cap to be posted to me. Thank you both.
USPS tracking reveals a sorry story.
Aug 3, 10.43am Posted, Clinton AR
Aug 3, 7.10pm Arrived USPS facility, Little Rock AR
Aug 6, 7.30am Arrived Chicago International Distribution Centre.
Aug 6, 2.30pm Processed through facility
Aug 7, 5.41pm Arrived Chicago International Distribution Centre ?
Aug 7, 5.41pm Departed Chicago International Distribution Centre ??
Aug 9, In transit to next facility
Aug 10, 1.11am Arrived Chicago USA
Aug 10, 6.20am Departed Chicago USA
Aug 10, 11.57am Departed San Francisco
Aug 12, 8.46am Departed Sydney, Australia.

Donnie advised he had posted it on Aug 3, and on or about Aug 24, I made enquiries at our local Post Office, and their tracking showed that it was not yet in Australia and they had no way to track it as yet ??? But, had I awakened a beast with this enquiry?

Aug 25, 6.09am Processed through regional Processing facility. Wait for it............. Chicago International Distribution Centre
Aug 26, 8.50am Arrived Chicago USA ????
Aug 28, Departed Los Angeles
Sept 2, 9.56am Departed Sydney
Sept 4, 2.05pm Processed through facility in Australia
Sept 5, 1.04am In transit to Adelaide.

With any luck, I should have it in a couple more days!

In the same period it took just 7 days for FedEx to get a parcel to me from Langs.

Allan from down under.

I've had packages go back and forth with USPS. There is a reason they have competition from FedEx and UPS.

Over the years I have had very good experiences with the USPS. We tend to remember the bad and forget the good. Two examples of the USPS service would be that last year it took them 19 days to get a letter from Nashua, NH to me in Naples Florida; some years ago I wrote a letter to someone in Barrow, Alaska. I received his written response in seven days from the time I first mailed the letter. At the time I lived in Massachusetts.
I attempted to mail a camera to Massachusetts from Portugal, they wanted $200, which included $100 for a "customs inspection." The package was not sealed up when I brought it to the post office. "Yup, it's a camera. $200 please". Ya, right. The camera returned to the Bay State in my luggage. The US customs service didn't charge me anything for the "customs inspection."

The postal service is really messed up.
I sent a car part to Hendersonville,a 2.5 hour drive from here.
It took it about 12 days to get there because it went somewhere up north,bounced around a bit and then,it got there the very day I was in the town my self. I actually drove by the garage that bought the part. I could have literally took it to them myself had I known the ineptitude of the postal service.
I sent a air filter assembly for a harley to new jersey a few years ago. Tracking number said it was on the vehicle for delivery.The buyer "never got it" and I had to give a refund and get my money back from the post office for a lost package.
In this situation, I think the buyer and the mail man worked it out that he would "loose" the filter and the buyer would get it for free.
I sent a 350 dollar postal money order to pay my credit card bill a few years ago. The next months bill said it was over due and there was a charge on there and blah blah blah,So i had to call them,give them the money order number and fill a report,send a double payment,and then wait 30 days to get a refund from the post office. which was promptly sent.
My dad paid his power bill with a check and the next months bill came up over due, a month later,a sliced open envelope came back to him with the check in it. we had to go to the bank and make sure there was no fraud. He now pays the bills at walmart with cash,kinda hard to loose it that way.

My parcel arrived yesterday! Thanks Donnie. Lovely cap. It will be a feature in my display.

Allan from down under.

Allan, glad it made it. I have had very good luck with the US Post office in the past. I have sent 100s of items to Australia with no problems. I even sent a Warford Transmission with no issues. But the postal service has been terrible since the 2020 election when we were blessed with a new head of the post office with no prior postal experience. ???

Enjoy your new toys .........

The Postmaster General is selected and appointed by the Board of Governors of the Postal Service, and can be removed by the same Board, at any time and apparently that time has not yet come. It has nothing to do with elections and in fact, he was appointed 5 months prior to the 2020 election. None of which absolves him of the often abysmal service we frequently receive today, nor excuses the likely self-dealing connections involved with his appointment. At least he made his money in private enterprise as opposed to the average "Joes" who are elected to Congress and retire as Multimillionaires.

The famous mail-box removals which he was accused of doing started 1 month prior to his appointment (and were replaced within 3 months), and ironically mailboxes are removed and generally replaced, over 3000 mailboxes per year on average, for many years. All the rest is pretty much his own doing.

If you are in charge of trying to keep a trailer full headed in a general direction - then it doesn’t matter when one package arrives in the trailer at it’s final destination …

It only matters to who is expecting that package
and who shipped it ….

The same applies to vehicle transport.

You get what you pay for.


FJ

So true FJ. I retired from a major shipping company, ( not the postal service), if you need it now you should use a premium next day service. With economy service, it will get there when it gets there.

I am currently dealing with a shipment of parts from France. The shipper loaded the container on a ship and sent it to Chicago, not the east coast. I don't think container ships can pass through the locks on the ST. Laurence river. Nonetheless, Chicago is a one-hour drive to the final destination. But now we hear that the container is on a train in California! It is nearly impossible to divert a container from a train to a truck chassis if it is not at its final destination. Still waiting...

Packages are sorted and shipped in containers to centralized distribution facilities. Even if it goes through your town on the way, it is not cost effective to stop and sort through the containers for your one package. I can't speak for the post office, but a for profit shipper does not want to touch or move a package anymore than what is absolutely necassary.

I had a package shipped from "back east" (everything is "back east" to a Californian) by DHL, then it was supposed to be handed off to the U S Postal Service when it got to Union City, CA (about a 4 to 5 hour drive from here) at that point tracking stops, DHL says it was given to USPS, USPS says they've never seen it. So much for tracking! It took me two weeks to get the sender to agree that it was lost. They then sent me a new shipment, and it arrived in 3 days.

I bought some items from Georgia. Waited patiently. I tracked it to Kearny, NJ

I live in NJ. But the package decided it wasn’t finished with its road trip and took a Grand Circle Tour to GRAND RAPIDS, Michigan

Bought an item from a well-respected forum member in CA.

Item was scheduled to be delivered on a specific day. Checked the mail. Not there. Checked tracking. Said undeliverable no such number.

I went to the post office a mile from my home. Told them I would be camping in their lobby until either the carrier or my package showed up. Told them I was the only Vanderburg in my town and that I thought it was curious that they couldn’t deliver something to me and yet I continuously get mail for someone who hasn’t lived at my address for over 25 years, if ever.

Low and behold, the driver had returned it to the PO during his route time.