So, we are responsible for delivering the items but USPS what?

[escuintla]

This is the second case in 3 months. I am sending a Media package to Santa Monica CA. I am all confident the post office will deliver, right? Well, look at this mess......Goes from San Jose to L.A. and then it's sent to Sait Louis MO. and from there back to Santa Monica. Gee! what a surprise!

In Transit to Destination

2017-08-23, 09:59:00, On its way to SANTA MONICA, CA 90404

Departed USPS Regional Facility

2017-08-22, 14:59:00, LOS ANGELES CA NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER

Arrived at USPS Regional Facility

2017-08-22, 14:16:00, LOS ANGELES CA NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER

In Transit to Destination

2017-08-21, 09:37:00, On its way to SANTA MONICA, CA 90404

In Transit to Destination

2017-08-20, 09:37:00, On its way to SANTA MONICA, CA 90404

In Transit to Destination

2017-08-19, 09:37:00, On its way to SANTA MONICA, CA 90404

Departed USPS Regional Facility

2017-08-18, 20:37:00, SAINT LOUIS MO NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER

Arrived at USPS Regional Facility

2017-08-18, 07:30:00, SAINT LOUIS MO NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER

In Transit to Destination

2017-08-17, 09:29:00, On its way to SANTA MONICA, CA 90404

Departed USPS Regional Facility

2017-08-16, 17:29:00, LOS ANGELES CA NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER

Arrived at USPS Regional Facility

2017-08-16, 03:41:00, LOS ANGELES CA NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER

Accepted at USPS Origin Facility

2017-08-16, 02:26:00, SAN JOSE, CA 95116

[honestabe411]

Very odd. Have never had this happen!

I do usually always ship first class mail though, so I'm not sure if the fact it's media mail has anything to do with it. 

[zzydny]

This has occasionally happened to me, too, when my packages have taken an unexpected tour of the US.  A few months back, something bound for Oregon spent nearly a week in Memphis (probably on Beale Street listening to the Blues!) before it got there.  And it wasn't Media Mail; it was First Class. 

Right now, one of my packages is somewhere in central Florida where the Tracking absolutely deadends.  USPS has no idea where it is or what happened, and I've not heard a word from the buyer.

Sometimes things just aren't where they are supposed to be.  It's a mystery.

[emerald40]

For some reason packages coming in to Rhode Island go on to New Hampshire, get recalled and come back.

This has been happening a lot lately.

[lex-talon]

Media mail is 4th class mail, very slow shipping service. Sometimes mail can be sent from one coast to the other.

Believe me, it's happened to me a few times. The usps is not perfect, sorry to say. Why not use Priority next time?😐

[southern*sweet*tea]

It was probably put on the wrong truck. Mistakes happen, and it stinks when it happens to you. 😞

Last year the USPS processed 154 BILLION pieces of mail and packages.  That equates to 421,917,808 pieces of mail PER DAY...every day of the year, because even when you don't get mail delivery (Sundays and holidays) the mail still moves, people are still working.  That is a mind boggling amount of mail processed, and it's guaranteed that mistakes will happen. But as I said, yeah...it stinks when it happens, especially to you.  If you ship things long enough it will happen, probably more than once.

[a_c_green]

---

@southern*sweet*tea wrote:

It was probably put on the wrong truck. Mistakes happen, and it stinks when it happens to you. 😞

---

Ayup. Right now a bemused buyer and I are watching a First Class Package of mine go from Illinois to Nebraska by way of New Jersey. Fortunately he's a regular buyer of mine, and also knows the difference between a package that's lost and a package that's just misdirected, so we're basically just watching out of curiosity to see where it's going to show up next. Perhaps someone at the sorting office thought that "NE" was the abbreviation for "New England." 

[escuintla]

I never had any problems before. Sometimes I get Media Mail delivered as fast as First Class, but lately, this is becoming one too many times.

2 months ago, I had another item, Media mail, going to this city, yes, to San Jose, my town. It went to the same locations you see on my topic. It took almost 11 days to arrive to the buyer's hand. No kidding!

[sg51]

Sometimes I get Media Mail delivered as fast as First Class, but lately, this is becoming one too many times.

The USPS despises media mail.

Usually they just do their jobs.

Sometimes someone gets hot headed, and decides to take their anger out on your media mail package.

[reallynicestamps]

It's hub and spoke distribution.

USPS uses it. FedEx uses it. The airlines use it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoke%E2%80%93hub_distribution_paradigm

It is counter-intuitive, but apparently it is more cost effective to have many parcels (or passengers) in a big shipment go to a central point and then redistribute the individual items to smaller destinations.

The alternative being  even smaller shipments going from Point A to Point B, in smaller trucks /planes at a higher cost.

[goddess-bastet-1910]

---

@sg51 wrote:

Sometimes I get Media Mail delivered as fast as First Class, but lately, this is becoming one too many times.

The USPS despises media mail.

Usually they just do their jobs.

Sometimes someone gets hot headed, and decides to take their anger out on your media mail package.

---

The post office despises NO mail.  Usually, the only people who touch the mail piece are the receiving clerk and the mail delivery person.   The post office is automated, huge bins of mail are sorted by computers which "read" the handwritten or typed addresses or barcodes.   Occasionally

a bin of unreadables are tossed by hand, but that's very seldem.  If the mail cannot be read by the computer, a person in a remote location inputs the address by  reading it off a computer image.

It takes two to three seconds to input the address and go to the next image.  

The biggest problem with automative systems is that your piece can have a barcode that didn't print properly or that your package/letter got stuck on another and they travel together.  The computer usually catches these pieces, but sometimes it looks normal.