The USPS Sucks – Share Your Horror Stories Here

A Sinking Ship

I’ve been a letter carrier for over 25 years and I pride myself on doing a great job for my customers but what I’m seeing in the USPS now has me ashamed to work for them.  All they care about now is speed, forget anything related to customer service.  I don’t remember the last time I saw anyone disiplined for a mis-delivery but go 15 minutes long on your route and watch out!  Over the years I’ve seen management decisions go from non-rational to “just plain stupid” to “to silly for words” to “their out of their F’n minds!”

Example:  We’re currently losing 5 BILLION dollars and managments big thing is scanning.  As letter carriers we have 9 scan points on our route that we have to make everyday and God help us if we miss one!  Seriously, is missing a scan point costing us  billion dollars?!  The USPS has a goal that 92% of first class mail within a city be delivered the next day.  That means that 8 out of every 100 won’t make it on time and that is considered praise worthy.  But letter carriers are expected to be 100% on their scans every day.  If your company was losing 5 billion dollars wouldn’t you put your energy towards improving your service.  Maybe I’m crazy but is seems that uping the value we bring for the money would be the way to go.

I used to think that the USPS would be around for 100 more years, now I’m just hoping to get an early retirement offer before this ship goes into the drink!

I thought only school children mix up Australia and Austria

I work for an online retailer and we have recently begun taking international orders. In one week alone, out of 20 shipments, 4 have been lost by the post office. The most recent one, is a customer who purchased a 400 dollar item to ship from USA to AustrALia, but it instead shipped to Austria. The tracking details specify “Arrived in AustrALia” and then right below that at the same time it also says “Arrived in Austria”.

The customer has contacted the Australia Postal service and they have no record of the parcel in their system! Now because the post office has lost 3 other packages this week (out of 20), I have no confidence that the package will make its way to the customer. I have checked my company’s records, and our records show the correct address with AustrALia. The amount of time I have spent corresponding with customers and post office phone representatives over the past week has reached over 5 hours.

I have filed a claim for the other 3 packages which been confirmed lost and I have been told that it can take up to 60 days to retrieve our losses. Meanwhile I have had to have my company re-ship the merchandise at our own expense. I’m not even sure I have confidence that we will make back our losses.

The whole system seems so broken. Such a shame.

We Have Found Your Address

I had three roommates. One decided to move out of state so the rest of us had to move elsewhere.

Luckily my parents are trying to sell a house they have already moved out of and allowed the three of us to move in in the cheap.

My father and I share the same name. Since his mail isbeing forwarded from the old address to the new address, I had to open up a POBox in Cedar Knolls, NJ.

I had to buy stamps. Since these stamps are being used  for wedding invitations, I had to special order them from the USPS web store. When I entered my PO Box as the delivery address, the website gave me a message to the effect of them locating my address within their own database.

After a week and a half I learn that the stamps had been deemed undeliverable and no one could tell me why. The Cedar Knolls, NJ USPS staff could not be less helpful. Apparently when they make mistakes, the don’thave to fix them.

So I had to take rime out of my day to fix the problem. If you want something done right…I’m really shocked at how glib and cavalier the staff and manager were towards my situation.

If any organization needs restructuring and customer service training it is the Cedar Knolls, NJ USPS.

January 2012 USPS Rate Increase

Looks like our friends at the Post Office are at it again! The USPS is raising it’s stamp prices 1 cent a piece to 45 cents. In return, you’ll receive the same shitty service, arrogant attitudes, and useless tracking information that you are used to with the United States Post Office.  Imagine if every business simply increased it’s prices every time that business dropped (20% and falling in the past 4 years). We’d still be living in the great depression!

죄송 우체국, Junwoo 싫어 해요 (Im sorry the post office sucks, Junwoo)

After I moved about two months ago, I set up mail forwarding with the USPS so that I could get all of my mail forwarded to my new address. A few days ago, I started receiving mail for a (Im assuming) Korean Man (or Woman) that lives in a town about 10 miles away.

First, some fun info about me – I am not Korean, despite the title of the post (google translate ROCKS!). Rather, Im an overweight white dude with a bunch of tattoos and body piercings. They are supposed to forward mail based on your name and previous address, so I don’t know how the fuck this started happening. I don’t share initials with this person, or even live in the same county.

The same post office bullshit happened to me the last time I moved, where they started forwarding all of my father’s mail to me and vice versa. I started receiving my dad’s pension checks bi-weekly and had to fucking hand deliver them 30 miles away because they’d just get sent back if I mailed them.

Anyway, back to the present. Being my wise ass self, I had to return all the mail to the sender and spell it out for them so they don’t fuck it up again. The post office sucks and should be shut down, imo.

Lost and Found (Not fucking likely)

After ordering something online over a week ago and not having received it, I decided to look up the USPS Tracking Number that was provided to my by the company.  The last existing record of the item existing was in the post office two towns over from where I live. As luck would have it, this post office is also right next to where I work. Since I only get 30 minutes a day for a lunch break, I decided to call them first to see if they had any idea where my item might be.

When I call, I give them the tracking number and my personal information. I was promptly put on hold for about 20 minutes while the clerk (or whoever the hell answers the phones there) wandered around the facility and looked for my package. They finally returned and said that the package must have been im Maywood (the town where I live), because the package was shipped out of that location. I said I really doubted it, considering that the package was last scanned at the location two towns over.

She then  told me that she would look into it and call me back. A few hours later, I decided to take a walk over (its literally two buildings from where I work) and just inquire in person. I asked the clerk at the desk if he could take a look for me. He disappeared for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, the two other clerks were busy doing something with their computers and chatting among themselves. 5 additional customers walked in during this time, all of whom were ignored while they finished up (slowly!) what they were doing.

While waiting for the clerk to get back, I turned around and commented to the woman behind me about the shitty service here. Finally, my clerk got back and told me the same story the lady on the phone did. My package was in the next fucking town – even though it had never been scanned there. They gave me the phone number, and I left mumbling angry things under my breath.

When I got back to the office, I called the post office in my town. The phone was answered by an incredibly rude woman, who, when I told her my story replied “Was you da’ one just in Hackensack? I ain’t got no idea where your package is. It ain’t here”. She then told me that when she found out from the carrier that I’d get a phone call. Im not holding my fucking breath.

Can we please shut this money sink down already?