What the.......???????

[piecemaker]

I ordered some figures from a seller in Massachusetts about a week ago.I checked the tracking # today to see where they were.The seller shipped the same day and they were processed at a USPS sort facility in New Jersey the next day.On the 18th they were processed through Richmond,California sort facility.From there they went to Bells Garden,California(the 19th) and was processed through there.I live in Illinois,so i'm scratching my head here wondering how a package headed to the Midwest traveled from the East coast to the West coast and now seems to be floating around California. I'm going to guess and say a USPS mistake? No big deal,everybody makes them,but if that is the case,they better not even think about charging me for Postage Due when it does arrive.

[mazinz]

They might be doing some re-routing? I had an item shipped the other week from California. Instead of going to New Jersey to be sorted (and then to me in New York). It stayed up in Massachusetts for a few days. Usually it goes from Cali straight to Jersey to New York, never takes a stop over in Mass

[piecemaker]

With the USPS,i guess anything is possible,they could be rerouting.It sure seems like the real long route to me,but i have had stuff shipped from Florida to Michigan,then to Iowa and then to Illinois.Everything i have recieved for years,no matter where its coming from,always goes to Des Moines,Iowa and then once it gets there,i'll have the package the next day.This should be interesting where it goes next.Hopefully not another sort facility in California.Get out of there and start heading back towards me.

[MIB41]

And we wonder why the Postal Service is going out of business?

[megoscott]

A package hasn't really lived until it's been through the Richmond sort facility.

[piecemaker]

Its like the traveling Mego.I wonder how many miles they will cover and how many states they visit before arriving.I punched the #s in USPS.com and they are saying it departed Bell Garden,CA March 20th with an estimated delivery date of March 20th,huh..... It may end up crossing the US again and going back to Massachusetts where it can start its journey again,who knows.

[jwyblejr]

And we wonder why the Postal Service is going out of business?

And the postal service wonders why they're losing all of this money. Could it be from all the fuel they're wasting taking cross-country trips with these packages?

[megocrazy]

It was probably a sorting error. If they sent it from the east coast to the west coast, basically they have to ship it back here as if it was sent from Cali. Had that with a package I shipped to a member here. Was going from Mass to NY. 3 hour drive, ended up on the west coast. Delivered 7 or 8 days later than expected. I could have hitchhiked it there in a day.

If UPS ever decided to get into residential delivery for mail they would put the PO out of business in about 30 seconds. They really don't need the help and UPS realizes there's not enough money in envelopes and bulk mail to bother.

Why we have Saturday delivery is beyond comprehension. With all the issues the USPS is having why not just stop paying for delivery everyday. Stop Wednesday and Saturday and save on the labor. Even if they did the change gradually as people retired, so they don't have to lay off it would be better than what they do now. I could wait for a day to get my cable bill or a possible letter from the 3 people on the planet that don't have the internet. Typical government move. Do nothing, they'll find the money eventually.

[mazinz]

It was probably a sorting error. If they sent it from the east coast to the west coast, basically they have to ship it back here as if it was sent from Cali. Had that with a package I shipped to a member here. Was going from Mass to NY. 3 hour drive, ended up on the west coast. Delivered 7 or 8 days later than expected. I could have hitchhiked it there in a day.

If UPS ever decided to get into residential delivery for mail they would put the PO out of business in about 30 seconds. They really don't need the help and UPS realizes there's not enough money in envelopes and bulk mail to bother.

Why we have Saturday delivery is beyond comprehension. With all the issues the USPS is having why not just stop paying for delivery everyday. Stop Wednesday and Saturday and save on the labor. Even if they did the change gradually as people retired, so they don't have to lay off it would be better than what they do now. I could wait for a day to get my cable bill or a possible letter from the 3 people on the planet that don't have the internet. Typical government move. Do nothing, they'll find the money eventually.

Hey Megocrazy we have Saturday for people like myself who due to job hours cannot get to the post office during the weekdays

[DocDrako]

I had a package shipped to the east coast when it was supposed to come to the west coast where I live. When I was checking the tracking number it informed me that it was mis-shipped and was being re-routed to me. They didn't charge me anything, as they admitted it was their fault. It was odd, but I got my package a few days later than expected.

[thunderbolt]

maybe they get frequent flyer miles? That sort of crap happens here with every piece of mail. A letter mailed within the county goes to Tampa and comes back since they had the brilliant idea of closing the Lakeland sorting facility.

[enyawd72]

The U.S. Postal service is the most idiotic operation on earth. They literally flush money down the toilet and can't figure out why they're failing.

The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. I live in Ashtabula, Ohio, yet a package sent to me from Cleveland, Ohio, which is only 1 hour away goes right past me all the way to a facility in southern Pennsylvania before coming back to Ohio. So, the PO just shipped a package four times farther than it needed to go wasting time, fuel, and labor.

Then let's talk about forwarding mail. My company sends out a large auction catalog to our subscribers once a year. Say a person has moved across town during that time. If we send a catalog all the way to California the PO will send it all the way back to Ohio, even though they HAVE the new address, (which they put on a new address label) just because the forwarding time has "expired". How about delivering the damn thing instead with a sticker that says please notify sender of address change?

[emeraldknight47]

Since this seems to be a thread dedicated to a bit of USPS bashing, dig on this: I mailed AJ Collector (Anthony) a money order for some items last Monday and as of this writing, he hasn't gotten it and the freakin' Post Office can't seem to tell me where the hell it is!!! It's VERY frustrating....

[mazinz]

if it accounts for anything in the praise for the US postal system, a letter I sent to the UK (from New York, US) took only 3 days to get where it had to.

[johnmiic]

^^^I've seen my overseas mail get to Europe as fast as some mail takes to get locally. Not just letters but packages too. They even explained that a package bound for Europe has to sit in a bin until the bin fills up before it goes overseas. It still got there in under 5 days in most cases.

I know it's easy to dig on the USPS. They have their fair share of bad apples and backwards ways gumming up the process. I shipped some merch to Canada and they charged me air-mail. I pointed out that Canada is on the same continent as the US so why was I being charged so much? They explained they don't do surface shipping to other countries anymore. No slow boat shipping-only air; even Canada-tho it's on the same land mass.

Still, they aren't a gov't owned agency anymore-haven't been or some time. I recall George C. Scott doing commercials for them years ago, in the 1990's, explaining this. Wikipedia also verifies it. They don't receive tax dollars to operate with a few exceptions-haven't for decades.

Also, a few years back, the USPS was required to prefund 75 years worth of future health benefit payments to their retirees w/in a 10 yr time span. That's a tremendous financial burden that no other gov't. agency has been required take on. So they are going to have to figure out how to make a profit or mailing letters is going to disappear completely and our email boxes are going to fill with more spam.