It is getting ridiculous Lucille. I sent out a package on July 9th to a friend in Wisconsin for her birthday tomorrow. It has gone to Mass. 4 times, Albany 3 times and back to my hometown twice. It is in route some where now but not sure if it is her place or back to my hometown. Thanks you for letting me join your rant.

Just this week, Informed Delivery suddenly has no images, just a drawing of an envelope saying I'm scheduled to receive a mailpiece for which they have no image. Yeah, that's helpful (said sarcastically).

Put that in the category of 50% of ‘Customer Service’ these days.

Is it here yet?! I'm anticipating its image any moment. C'mon post office, get her the package already!

Without knowing how it was packaged, how it was addressed, what level of service was paid for, etc., it might be premature to jump to conclusions. Maybe the postal service is at fault, maybe not.

The daily piece count for the postal service nationwide must be many hundreds of millions of items. A failure rate as low as 1/2 of one percent (pretty phenomenal if they can do that well) would still produce hundreds of thousands of wayward items each day.

I think this varies from place to place. Our postal service experience is excellent, so too Informed Delivery. While I like both UPS and FedEx and we have a steady stream of deliveries from them too, I think our USPS service is better and more consistently so. Five of the six delivery days of the week, we have the same postman we've had for years. He knows the people in the neighborhood and goes the extra mile for his customers. And always gets several bottles of good wine from us at year end.

I signed up for informed delivery a while ago because mail
theft is a huge problem in my area. We have a 12 unit neighborhood locked
box on our street, but apparently they are now wrenching these open, too. Or using a
winch to haul the whole thing away in the middle of the night. But when I
signed in to see the informed delivery info, all it said was, "You are
scheduled to receive 14 pieces of mail today." I couldn't figure out
WHY anyone would bother signing up if you only get a piece count. If
it's stolen, I won't know what's missing. No images - I didn't even
know that was supposed to be part of the service. I chalked it up to another
USPS boondoggle - wasting taxpayer money. But I'll check again and see
if there are images available now. eta: I just checked and there ARE images! Very good!

I can recite many more rants about the USPS. But recently I sent a sympathy card to someone in Germany; she never received it. Then her sister told me that in Germany they will not deliver mail written in cursive, it all must be addressed printed. Oh, well.

Then, probably 2 months later, I got the card back in the mail, with a "not deliverable as addressed" (in English) sticker on it, along with a few more USPS stickers about returning it to me.

I thought that was pretty impressive.

I really like the informed delivery. It's been pretty accurate. Sometimes it won't have an image but a little later the image is there. In this horrible heat we are having here it certainly does help make the decision for my husband is it essential to walk out to get the mail today. When just junk mail no reason to rush out to the mailbox.

olychick, maybe your email account (like mine) is set to NOT display images embedded in a email. For me, that's intentionally my default but there's an icon to click at the top, in the body of the email message itself, to show the images in that particular message if desired. I block images to save mobile data, I don't need to see company logos or other random visual flotsam when I get an email.

If mailbox theft is common in your area, that's not the USPS's fault. A solution of course would be to get a PO box.

Elmer, I edited above to say the images are showing now. I don't use my phone to do stuff like that; it wasn't a setting, just a glitch. And, like most people, I am aware of the choice to have a po box for more secure mail, but it's not convenient to my location. I'll take my chances on the locked mailbox.

I never implied that the USPS was responsible for mail theft.

I love the informed delivery and have no problem with the images. We live on a private road and the mail boxes are down at the main road. If we are not going out that day it lets me see if if it is worth it to make the trip to the mailbox. I wish the service was able to tell you when the mail was actually delivered to the mailbox itself. It would save some useless trips.

I don't have a problem with informed delivery. It lets me know there's nothing worth walking to the box in the heat to get.

The only thing it doesn't work for is packages from Amazon. They must come in a different route.

But I track them using the provided tracking number so it doesn't matter.



As for delivery errors, my count just went to:

USPS: 1

UPS: 1

FedEx: 2

The last one was FedEx. They guy dropped it off, rang the bell and left. I was expecting a package and hurriedly tore it open to discover it wasn't mine. I opened the door to see if I could catch him to see him backing up to correct his error.

I live in Vero Beach, Florida. I had a UPS package make it to Orlando, then somehow (scanner misread label?) end up in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. Showed as "out for delivery". It eventually made it here though. I didn't count that as an error but probably should have.

USPS delivers the vast majority of the things I receive so at least in my case, their error rate is the lowest.

I reckon any time humans (or non-humans) are involved, errors are bound to occur.

A friend in Texas mailed a bubble wrap envelope to me in Georgia on July 3 and I still haven't as of July 18th received it and "her" post office has no idea where the package is. They gave her a phone number to call and when she did, it was some "porn" thing! She hung up quickly. The postal service is just getting worse and worse.

Elmer, you are lucky to have had one mail carrier for a long time. I did, too, when I first moved to this house and all was well, but when he retired, I've had no carrier for longer than a few months. I often receive other addressee's mail and go around the street putting it back into the correct mailboxes. I started using informed delivery to help me track what I'm supposed to receive, but as I stated earlier, suddenly there are no images. Maybe the scanner is broken at my local distribution center.

I love Informed Delivery also. Due to physical problems I find it difficult to walk to my mailbox. It's great to see if something worth the effort to go to the mailbox is there. My mail, unfortunately, comes anywhere between 1 and 6 p.m., so I would like to know when the delivery has been made, especially in the wintertime when it gets dark so early, and trips to the mailbox may be hazardous. Nevertheless, I'm thankful just to have Informed Delivery.

fun2bhere, I don't know if we've been lucky or if others telling of poor service have been unlucky. Maybe a little of both. Before the current guy (who we've had at least 10 years), we had another for at least that long and maybe longer. Coincidentally, we shared a last name though we weren't related. Talk about good service! We called one another Cousin XXX (we used first names) and he really looked out for us.

I had the same mailman also for a long time and all was good. Then he retired and that is when the problems started. I signed up for informed delivery and report all missing pieces of mail, even junk mail. After about two weeks of that, my problems went away.

I like the Informed Delivery and have had no problems with it. It is great when we are travelling and having our mail held. I can see if there is anything there that requires my immediate attention.

And, yes, it does prevent a long walk down a snowy driveway for a piece of advertising.

I must live under a rock. I had no idea Informed Delivery existed. Granted, I do most everything electronically and paperless now but it does sound very interesting.

Jennifer; don't feel bad. I only found out about it from a post from the USPS a few weeks ago. I have no idea how long it's been in existence.

i returned a pair of shoes. Several weeks had gone buy and tracking number showed that package was in town where return center was. It still remained undelivered for another week. I filed a claim for post office to check on it but came back later that they had no idea where package was.

Meanwhile shoe company gave me a credit for the item. Post office is clueless even when they deliver the package.

Just two days ago, there was a post on my Nextdoor feed from a lady saying that she hoped the thieves who stole the package from her front door enjoyed using the replacement presser foot for her sewing machine.

I suppose as we use home delivery for more and more items, we will see an even greater incidence of front porch thievery.

Dropping in to say here is what you do not know about your USPS.

Fun facts

It is NOT tax payer funded. They are paid for certain special mail services to the government and have a slush fund to borrow from which has to be paid back. That is the extent of their federal funds.

The USPS while being in fact a business is not allowed to operate like a business. Any changes they make as in pricing of services or deals with other parcel businesses have to be passed by congress. Yes, congress.

They are the only entity who can use your mailbox. Even you cant legally leave a note in your mothers mailbox unless you put a stamp on it.

Both UPS and FEDEX have business arrangements with USPS to deliver small packages. It is up in the air as to whether or not they lose money on it. They do not get to negotiate the deal as a business would.

Your Mail carrier cant legally accept gifts over about $5 in value including bottles of wine. No gifts of actual money.

Depending on whether or not you have rural delivery(which can be in town) or city delivery your daily mail carrier can change in predictable patterns. Rural in particular usually delivers 5 days a week with one day of a relief carrier who could be different all the time and who will often make lots mistakes since rural carriers generally deliver to from 500 to 700 addresses per day. Imagine having to know several routes. Expect issues when your regular carrier is sick or on vacation. So it goes.

When you consider how large the US is and how big a population we have compared to anywhere else our rates are ludicrously low (look up postal fees in other countries) and delivery is astonishingly accurate. We set a world standard.

You do not have to get mail, simply take down your box but they have to deliver anything addressed to you if you have a box.

The US government only communicates with you initially through the mail so if you take down your box you will not know you are being audited for Taxes..just a warning.

"We set a world standard."

I lived in Western Europe for several years a few decades ago. While the size of the US presents a challenge, and no Western European country is as large, I have to say that the postal service in the country I lived in made the USPS look like an amateur operation. Yes, it was more expensive but the service in-country, to other countries, and back to the US was consistently superb and quick.

Yes, after traveling around and having tracking stop completely for 4 days it is supposedly coming my way. This experience has been such a cluster that I'm not raising my hopes, when and if I actually get it I will post.

Pictures too right?

Yes, if I get it. I hope it is nice after all this aggravation, I actually do not know anything about judging quilts and their quality, but this one just seemed pretty to me.

Oh I hope it shows up!!!

Did your quilt ever get delivered Lucille?

No, not yet.

Oh, I hope it arrives and you send us photos. It is a beauty.

It's here. I'm just relieved that it didn't get totally lost.

Hooray!! It's beautiful!

Very pretty!

Lucille, you did good!! Its lovely with a capital L.

Now get to work on the repairs before washing.

I'm so glad it came....also....NO Sodium Percarbonate. LOL.

Finally!!!! I love it.

Such lovely colors in the fabric!

Glad it arrived! Pretty quilt!