USPS--You're doing a LOUSY job
I've been selling for years and have always thought the USPS did a really good job. But, lately it's really bad. So many late deliveries all over the country.
One I had took 3 weeks and after I did a report and talked to them they delivered a package of rubber gloves instaed of my jewelry. Of course I had to refund. Another has gone to their 'lost and found'. So I had to refund. They lost it.
Today, Ebay sends me a message to refund a return that hasn't arrived to me. It was shipped 1/29 and is still moving thru the system. But, said I had to refund by 2/13. Haven't received it.
Many shipments I'm following up on and keeping my buyers informed. My packing is very good and there is no issue with it.
Very unhappy with the job they're doing. They are costing me money and time as I chase these down.
greekimports
·1 year agoYes, I am required by my post office "rules" to place all prepaid packages out back in giant usps carts that gets loaded up on a usps truck to transport to another usps location. There it gets scanned in, but now its taking 3-5 days just to scan my packages in. Now my metrics are way out of whack. It has definitely been a very frustrating the last few months. I have tried to stand in the usps line to go to the counter just to get them scanned in, but there they reject me and tell I have to put them out in the back. It makes me want to scream. USPS failing to their job, results in me hearing from very angry buyers and losing my top rated on ebay. No win situation for me. Oh well, I guess life goes on..
powell-collectibles
·1 year agoPainful. I, too, will lose my top rated status on another account. Actually, I think that I already did. I'm at ~4% late shipments, all due to scans not happening at my PO. Partly my fault, as I refuse to stand in line to get my scans - I just dump in the bin and leave. Tracking is just a mess, even when I get a scan at origin. Days and days of nothing, then item will get a tracking update once it is in the buyer's PO. I look like a complete flake to some buyers 🙂
mam98031
·1 year agoJust FYI: You don't get a late shipment ding even if the original scan does not happen within your stated handling item IF the delivery scan happens within the ETA on the purchase.
deltilogical
·1 year agoFor a long time USPS was forced to prepay its retiree health benefits - unlike any other entity - so only the past few years has it been able to focus any budget on technology as its market has changed from mostly letters to mostly packages, as US culture has changed from social retail to isolation. They also have a lot of retirees they need to pay.
For most people, the PO is where they go once a year to drop off their MOthers Day card and they expect top notch service when they come in once a year for the 1st class stamp they need.
People don't read books, don't write letters, they don't even have full phone calls anymore - there isn't much left!
bipil_87
·1 year ago5 Days from Mailbox to local distribution center and no movement since. Buyer sent in item not received yet. USPS says they will put in a service ticket and get back to me AFTER the must resolve date. Contacted buyer and he said send another (which luckily I have). No way to track 2nd shipment and when it arrives so I will most likely still have to issue a full return credit if requested. Boy is this fun.
untod
·1 year agoWell, there IS. You ship it via a trackable service, and you add the new tracking number to the original order's tracking so it's all shown together right there for eBay & your customer to see.
mam98031
·1 year agoWhy in the world would you send out a replacement without tracking??? Not a good idea.
thingsyoumaywont
·1 year agoYes they are really getting bad I have four packages that are 4 days behind schedule and all they say is it's running late, people making over 20 bucks a hour could do a better job.
mam98031
·1 year agoThen use a different carrier in the future. You don't have to use USPS. There are some options. They may cost more, but they also my fit with your needs better.
aeparts1
·1 year agoA couple of months back my local Post Office put up several large posters detailing how to properly prepare a reused box for shipment. Magic marker out an old address bad, cover with a square of white paper good. Cover all bar codes on the box with a square of white paper. Cover old UPS labels, or remove them completely. Remove the small rectangle UPS zip code sticker, they contain some sort of metal grid on the back that messes with sorting equipment (peel one off to see the grid). Cover manufacturers name & address with a square of white paper. Cover every single string of numbers with a square of white paper. And so on. The box needs to be completely blank, no numbers bar codes, or addresses, other than what is on the label. Magic marker or pen scratching it out is not good enough. The postal clerk schooled me on this right after the posters went up, even though I already did this. I suspect the PO has installed new equipment that detects all bar codes, addresses & numbers on a box, in addition to a label. Have any of those extra codes, numbers & addresses on a box, I'll bet it gets delayed.
Don't ship in a tube, they roll around & defy the scanners.
yellow-snapdragon
·1 year agoMy shipments coming in to me from the west coast arrive at Missoula, then get shipped to Billings, sit there a couple days, then get shipped BACK to Missoula which is an hour from me. Then get sent to my local PO. Talk about EFFICIENT!
max-list
·1 year agoThe worst part of this is ebay telling the customer "your package should arrive by ../.." They expect it between those days which is sometimes the day after I mail it.
bashort
·1 year agoOne I had to refund today, I live in southern Illinois and package was headed for southern Florida.
Somehow it went to Chicago which is about 500 miles out of the way never to be heard from again.
simply-the-best-for-you
·1 year agoYou know, I've always been pretty pleased with the USPS & being in the middle-ish of the country, I tend to get 2 day service to everywhere, which still seems to mostly be the case for my pkgs, but my sis recently wrote me about the Xmas card I sent her. I asked why she was just commenting about it now. She had just rec'd it - OVER 1 MONTH from when I mailed it!
Meanwhile a pkg I sent 2 states away on like the 23rd & I knew wasn't going to get there by Xmas. Did.
IDK what's going on, but a month for a Xmas card is nuts!
rockinhorserevivalist
·1 year agoDoes anyone know if it matters which USPS service you use? Priority at one time was 2 days, now 3 days normally. So are they holding up Priority packages for weeks too, or just ground advantage
meme6253
·1 year agoI agree USPS services have been on the decline, But posting complaints here about them won't do anything, You need to bring the issues straight to USPS via online complaints, customer service calls, etc, & even then it is very possible nothing will be done!
mam98031
·1 year agoI think it is important to remember that we have had some horrific weather across our great nation. If one it to believe that this would not have a negative impact on deliveries, they are just not considering the facts.
mam98031
·1 year agoI get as frustrated as others do when USPS messes up a delivery for one reason or another. But the vast majority of the time, they do a terrific job. It is a small percentage of my packages that I have to assist my buyers with by filing traces or whatever. I have had one lost package in over a year. USPS handles a whole lot of packages against all kinds of weather.
inhawaii
·1 year ago20+ years of selling on ebay.
Thousands of outgoing packages.
I can count on one hand the number of packages that were lost.
Sure once in a while a package is delayed.
If you go strictly by the numbers, I think the USPS does a great job.
trickmusic
·1 year agoIt’s amazing how bad they have gotten. At some point Elon University is going to feel it too.
roccotacodad54
·1 year agoYes. As a buyer I have learned to be patient. My local service is top notch (rural). The problem lies with the town before the little town that handles my mail. I've seen packages go from there back to the state hub and back and then to another town, back to the hub, back & forth round and round. You'd think they never heard of my area and I'm only a 20 min. drive from there.
It's been that way here for years. I finally got all but one in 10 years and that seemed to disappear in Arizona.
chapeau-noir
·1 year agoThere has also been consolidation of sorting centers in behest of the so-called 'Delivering for America" initiative (why do bills like this always have names that state what they actually DON'T do?).
selsa84
·1 year agoMy dad's a vet and the last 5 appointment letters from the VA have showed up weeks after the appointment. His meds use to get shipped but he now has to go to the VA or private doc to get them because they arrive after he has already run out. Fox 5 here in Atlanta recently did a few stories on the issue. What's really funny is Dejoy recently gave himself an "A" for the way things have been going when asked about the issues.
bashort
·1 year agoYes, you can bank on it actually being the opposite of what it was advertised as
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoTrump was hell bent on privatizing the USPS, AND i AM SURE HE STILL wants to do it and make it one of his business interests. He and Dejoy I am sure will drag down the service so much that everybody will be screaming for the privatization.
bashort
·1 year agoFunny UPS, Fedex, or Amazon delivery service do not appear to be having problems.
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoIf this keeps up we are switching to FEDEX like we did during the pandemic.
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoThe Department of slow mail service.
deltilogical
·1 year agoKnock on wood things have been going ok this past year for me, a difference from the previous. I 've learned to not ship on a stormy bad driving day, it seems to help things to not get stuck at the local level, although it may just be my imagination. Most of my shipping is simple first class mail or ground advantage large envelopes. Very few packages.
jbbowers12012
·1 year agoHi, Here in New Jersey we have noticed that delivery times have been really slooooooow. Ever since we had to switch from First Class Package to Ground Advantage - times have just been getting slower and slower. REALLY slow the past six months or so. Also, though we always make sure to get our acceptance scan - scanning thru. to delivery has been really sporadic. We even had a few packages that showed only two tracking updates - "Accepted & Delivered". Everything IS getting where it has to go so far though. So, no real complaints........ (J.B. From N.J.)
dpgcolle-30
·1 year agoMy issue is with the standard envelope. A nice option for the seller and the buyer but those get lost a lot. Tracking on them is hit and miss.
selsa84
·1 year agoIf I ship maps in a tube even with priority it still takes 12 or more days
selsa84
·1 year agoPurchased something and after 10 days of no movement in Indiana I asked the seller and she said she has 8 packages sitting there since the 4th. When I ship and this happens I file the claim asap and and sometimes get the package delivered and get a check from USPS. Make em pay for this crap.
dm772012
·1 year ago@bill.purvis2012 I'm having the same issue with most of my shipments. I ship same day.
This has been happening since December 2024. My latest package was 2 weeks late. I have another package floating in the system somewhere??? I keep in contact with each buyer with updates. Some still blame me 😞 we're at the mercy with our shippers. Getting harder for me to deal with so many ebay rules and changes...feel your pain
rokkworks
·1 year agoBill, you’re not imagining things. Back in Aug ‘24, DeJoy announced slower deliveries would start in 2025, as a cost cutting measure. He seems to have done what he said.
Here is the substance, reported…https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/national-international/usps-proposes-changes-delivery/3700767/
I the last 2-3 weeks I’ve noticed a increase in how long my packages have taken to arrive at the first hub, and how long they take to get on a plane and how long they sit at the destination hub before delivery.
funfir_14
·1 year agoI thought I'd share my story. I lost about $50 bucks a few months ago because of a box of comic books that was never delivered nor returned to me. My buyer opened an INR case and of course eBay put my funds on hold and refunded them even though it was clearly not my fault. At that point, the tracking showed the box stuck in transit. I recently checked the tracking to see what finally happened with the box and now it says that USPS disposed of it because they could neither deliver it to the recipient nor return it to me. My guess is that it probably got damaged. I normally use Poly mailers and never have any problems. This was the one time I used a flat rate box. Never again.
bashort
·1 year agomy guess is that it went into a dumpster with many others in a effort to clear the backlog
evry1nositswindy
·1 year agoMy tax preparer said so many clients have not received their W2s yet. We are still missing one that was mailed out from one state over on January 31. First class mail, 2 weeks later, nothing.
sextons-sweet-deals
·1 year agoI know what you mean.
I have one that went missing for 18 days and now back on the radar. It's a fragile item, so I'm expecting the worse if it gets delivered.
rockinhorserevivalist
·1 year agoThe local news in Indiana is reporting extensively on the problems at the distribution hub even the union there admits its a disaster
sextons-sweet-deals
·1 year agoyou're in Maryland. I'm in Indianapolis. My local is not saying anything.
Here is my latest update as of today on a purchase from South Carolina. Notice it arrives at 46219, goes to 46299, and then back to 46219 on 2/10. Just messed up!
b86fiero
·1 year agoNot much we can do about the USPS delivery times. Ship and hope seems to be the motto these days. Several sorting facilities are overwhelmed and under staffed. Detroit is the same way.
I received a purchase 3 days later than eBay's estimated delivery last week. The seller lives a half hour from me and shipped it immediately. In the "old days" I would have received it the next day. Now all mail from NW Ohio goes to the Detroit sorting hub where it might lay for days before moving.
Of course I did not ding the seller for late delivery. Not her fault. But I do wonder if eBay dinged her anyway since USPS tracking showed it arriving late.
tobaccocardyahoo
·1 year agoSometimes you can see a pattern to what is happening to your delayed shipments.
I noted some time back that items I shipped via GA in a 4.5"x9.5" Ebay cardboard envelope were getting lost or delayed. I stopped using them and saw the number of delayed or missing shipments drop.
Your mileage may vary.
IMO the problem is employees. Opened a case for a delayed shipment with multiple in transit commands. The person handling it did not read all of the scan entries and wrote me telling me that there was a problem after it left Aurora CO and they could not find it. But there were later scans in Oakland and San Francisco. The item sat in San Francisco for several days, either ignored or misplaced.
USPS personnel policies predate DeJoy and personnel problems existed 50 years ago. My Dad, who passed 44 years ago was a letter carrier and had a wealth of stories about his stupid and lazy colleagues.
12345jamesstamps
·1 year agoUSPS has been great by me.
Incoming or outgoing USPS mail has been quite normal.
Nothing ever lost yet.
FedEx has been super great...New Jersey seller gets my packages to me in 2 days.
And my Macao, China seller gets my packages to me in 1 1/2 weeks or less.
Guess it depends where you live.
bashort
·1 year agoone thing that I have noticed recently that I do not remember seeing before is daily scans at 12AM for several days in a row at the same location, then shortly after INR claim and refunding
bill.purvis2012
OP1 year agoLook at this on a return that was shipped to me. from ferndale, WA to me in SC.
Moving Through Network
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
SEATTLE WA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 8, 2025, 8:46 am
In Transit to Next Facility
February 8, 2025, 2:27 am
In Transit to Next Facility
February 7, 2025, 5:32 pm
Departed USPS Regional Facility
DENVER CO DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 7, 2025, 8:35 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
DENVER CO DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 5, 2025, 1:07 pm
Departed USPS Facility
AURORA, CO 80018
February 5, 2025, 12:27 pm
Arrived at USPS Facility
AURORA, CO 80018
February 5, 2025, 11:17 am
In Transit to Next Facility
February 4, 2025
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
ATLANTA GA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 3, 2025, 1:44 am
Arrived at USPS Facility
PALMETTO, GA 30268
February 2, 2025, 8:24 pm
In Transit to Next Facility
February 2, 2025, 8:12 pm
Departed USPS Regional Facility
ATLANTA GA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 2, 2025, 7:36 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Facility
ATLANTA GA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
February 2, 2025, 2:15 am
In Transit to Next Facility
February 1, 2025, 12:00 pm
In Transit to Next Facility
January 31, 2025, 5:59 pm
In Transit to Next Facility
January 30, 2025, 9:00 pm
Departed USPS Regional Facility
SEATTLE WA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
January 30, 2025, 4:50 am
Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility
SEATTLE WA DISTRIBUTION CENTER
January 30, 2025, 12:47 am
Departed Post Office
FERNDALE, WA 98248
January 29, 2025, 5:03 pm
USPS picked up item
FERNDALE, WA 98248
January 29, 2025, 9:40 am
phonographneedles
·1 year agoI too an experiencing very slow service with my local post office. up to 3 days for them to get it to the regional office to be distributed to the next location. they lose a lot of my items too making me lose money and the product i sent out. Sometimes it arrives, but 2 weeks late and i already refunded the money to the buyer cuz i am in a pickle when it comes to ebay standards. ebay needs to adjust the arrival estimate to about 7 to 10 more days especially in the winter too. Buyers getting a package in 3 days, even in the same state, is not realistic time frames. Add another week to 10 days, i always tell my customers cuz USPS is slow!!!!!
yellow-snapdragon
·1 year agoI shipped an item on December 11th, on December 16th, the last tracking update said "no access to delivery location". No updates since. Not delivered, not returned to me. So I filed a claim with USPS as lost. They DENIED it, saying it was delivered! So their insured shipments mean nothing. They can just deny legitimate claims?
heckofagame
·1 year agoI guess you will just have to drive stuff to wherever yourself.
meme6253
·1 year agoDoes ebay have a gas reimbursement program??
bashort
·1 year agoI got a 2nd bill recently for something that I had mailed the check for on 12/30/24,
the check was never cashed.
sent another one last week, they contacted me and said that they got both payments in the mail yesterday.
What are the odds and just where was that envelope hiding all that time
jameshen1
·1 year agoI am sure that posting this here, it will be brought to the attention of the USPS and they will make improvements immediately.
bill.purvis2012
OP1 year agoNo. But, it will let other sellers know they're not alone in this problem. Something we do here on this page.
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoFor your information, the Indianapolis Distribution center has been a mess for months. They say it’s because they are way understaffed.
top-down-fever
·1 year agoI agree. My buyer's package is going in circles around Indianapolis!
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoDejoy and Trump strike again.
dpgcolle-30
·1 year agoNot sure how Trump has anything to do with this. The problem isn't something that's cropped up over the last 3 weeks. This is a USPS problem. They increase their rates and perform poorly.
dm772012
·1 year ago@dpgcolle...totally agree with you and your post. People blame Trump for everything. Trump derangement syndrome
lux.ra_14
·1 year agoNo need to dispense an imaginary diagnosis. People are free to criticize their leaders in a free society.
Fact is, DeJoy was a Trump crony and donor who was appointed under Trump nearly five years ago to fix USPS. How's that going?
I personally think USPS does a good job on balance, but no one is immune from criticism.
c21lawson
·1 year agoI agree with you, the USPS system was bad long before Trump came in, I have so many envelopes every month get lost.
dm772012
·1 year agoyou really do hate Trump.
meme6253
·1 year agoHow many strikes is that already?, For both of them?, I know in baseball 3 strikes & your OUT!
lux.ra_14
·1 year agoDeJoyless (adjective.) Lacking in happiness due to poor postal performance.
I sank into a DeJoyless despair when more of my packages were lost or delayed.
lb23cavaliersmvp
·1 year agoI only ship USPS and the results in the last 5 years are variable for no apparent reason. Clearly the weather this winter has caused problems but imo the cause is postmaster dejoy. He was a trump appointee with multiple conflicts of interest due to large stock holdings in competing publicly traded companies. The USPS was created by the founders to ensure citizens could freely and inexpensively communicate with one another not as a for profit company. Demanding that the USPS fully fund retirement/pension accounts far into the future would bankrupt most publicly traded companies. dejoy's "reorganization" of the USPS is imo designed to cripple it as viable organization. Your suggestion that a package wasn't delivered on time because someone opened it and replaced jewelry with rubber gloves is something I've never experienced.
bashort
·1 year agoyes, got 2 INR yesterday. Went to usps.com to check on my previous lost claims and add some more and can not check on old ones or add new ones
vintagecraze50
·1 year agoTRump and this guy are major disrupters, and I do not mean that favorably as with innovative, I mean destructive.
selsa84
·1 year agoI agree. Things have gotten worse and I honestly don't see things improving any time soon. File your claims asap.
thingsyoumaywont
·1 year agoYes 4 days behind so far on packages