Post Office slow down is real

Palmpilot said:
If I received more than one ballot, I wouldn't take a chance on voting more than once. I don't know how they do it where you live, but in California, they keep track of who has already voted.
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When in the courthouse for early voting it was explained that by signing on the esigniture that would go on record for voting, to ensure folks that mail in ballots would not be counted, or something along those lines.
 
Further information on how ballots are handled here in California:

 
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Our postal worker is having issues again. We're in a townhome with a central mailbox set--up; three units like PO boxes in each with a couple of larger boxes at the bottom for packages. Twice last week she put mail in our box slot. First time it was for people at three other addresses. Second time is was for 6 other addresses. Plus our mail too.

My wife saw a posting in the neigh orhood FB group saying another person or two had the same thing.

Just nuts. It's like she just gets tired if it and stuffs the mail into some box at random.

It has happened before and I submitted a complaint. They addressed it. Seems to be back again, so I submitted another complaint.



Wayne
 
It seems like the renewal notice for my pickup truck should have come by now. If it doesn't show up pretty soon, I'll renew it on line without waiting for the notice.
 
Luckily RockAuto sent my order via FedEx and not USPS. My wife neglected to tell me about the brake squeal that's been happening intermittently for a week or two on her truck. Now it sounds like hot garbage because the pads have worn down and it's making quite the screech upon all braking (still has pad material, it's just the brake pad wear sensor). Oh well, she gets to deal with it until the parts arrive in a couple of days, lol.
 
Zeldman said:
When in the courthouse for early voting it was explained that by signing on the esigniture that would go on record for voting, to ensure folks that mail in ballots would not be counted, or something along those lines.
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Yes, that was my concern a few years ago. I am a permanent mail-in voter, but I was going on vacation before I thought I would receive the ballot, although early voting in person had started. I went to City Hall to vote and asked them about my mail ballot. They said that if I voted in person, the fact that I voted would be recorded, and my mail ballot would be invalid if received. I agree with @Palmpilot, that the ballot is barcoded, and they need to be signed on the outside of the envelope. This time I put my ballot in the blue mailbox and it was tracked to the Dept. of Elections within two days.
 
Palmpilot said:
It seems like the renewal notice for my pickup truck should have come by now. If it doesn't show up pretty soon, I'll renew it on line without waiting for the notice.
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Funny you should mention that. Over the weekend we noticed Karen’s plate stickers expired in July. LOL.

We assume the little postcard went missing and neither of us noticed it. We also assume either she’s been lucky or cops have just been avoiding pulling her over for Covid concerns. Haha. Even our written budget had a July note on it, so we missed it completely.

Anyway, online renewal and our State’s system also provides a temp tag.

Also got nailed with a significant late fee. I assume claiming the postcard never arrived won’t be a reason for the State to refund that. Not even going to bother wasting time on it.

Last year they listed all our vehicles as stolen and we enjoyed two felony stops, due to the county folks ignoring data entry problems they caused — so meh. Whatever. Yay computers.

You’d think an e-mail along with the postcard could fix that... since they have the address... ha. But expecting a bureaucracy to utilize tech in a modern way is probably asking far too much. Ha. Especially a DMV.

Who sends postcards as a primary means of communication in 2020? LOL. Backup maybe... for the few remaining luddites without email, SMS, or a phone. Haha.
 
Palmpilot said:
Further information on how ballots are handled here:

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That covers CA. Can’t get too deep into how I know various other places have differences, but it might have to do with that website mentioned above. Haha.

Remember the local election commission runs the show legally, anyway. Then State legislators can pre-empt various things at their next higher level. And then for the most part above that are Federal “guidelines”, but they’re audited and monitored by a fleet of people from security to multiple mandated partisans to lawyers to ... well it’s a lot of people.

Touch any of it, even in a way that can’t affect outcomes, and you won’t be needing a proctologist any time soon. LOL.

But there are subtle differences. States rights and all that Jazz.

I’m not even allowed to show you on the doll where certain agencies touched me, without approval of their lawyers and PR people, though. Ha.

I can say that not too many places go against any of the mountains of recommendations — but a handful do for relatively unimportant things. Only real way to know how your locals do stuff is to ask them, to whatever level of detail you might want or need.

Some make nice videos like that CA example. My county prints a brochure. Your local mileage may vary.
 
denverpilot said:
Funny you should mention that. Over the weekend we noticed Karen’s plate stickers expired in July. LOL.

We assume the little postcard went missing and neither of us noticed it. We also assume either she’s been lucky or cops have just been avoiding pulling her over for Covid concerns. Haha. Even our written budget had a July note on it, so we missed it completely.

Anyway, online renewal and our State’s system also provides a temp tag.

Also got nailed with a significant late fee. I assume claiming the postcard never arrived won’t be a reason for the State to refund that. Not even going to bother wasting time on it.

Last year they listed all our vehicles as stolen and we enjoyed two felony stops, due to the county folks ignoring data entry problems they caused — so meh. Whatever. Yay computers.

You’d think an e-mail along with the postcard could fix that... since they have the address... ha. But expecting a bureaucracy to utilize tech in a modern way is probably asking far too much. Ha. Especially a DMV.

Who sends postcards as a primary means of communication in 2020? LOL. Backup maybe... for the few remaining luddites without email, SMS, or a phone. Haha.
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That happened to me, only I was stopped for speeding on Delbert. The officer didn't notice until he checked my registration against the database, then told me, "Ma'am, just take this car home and park it until you register it." Got out of the ticket too. Luckily I still had a second vehicle (the white Jeep).
 
flhrci said:
I have been having mail issues at my new address so I also sent myself an empty envelope. 4 days for it to go 10 miles.
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Received a check one of my client sent LAST year 2 days ago:eek::eek::confused:

The Christmas card from my mother arrived first week of April ...

I don't send payments by mail, and only mail directly at the post office HOPING they won't lose it!:mad:
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I'm pretty sure you haven't read this thread. I still send checks by mail
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That in itself is hopelessly outdated. I don't understand why the US banking system is so old fashioned. It needs to join the rest of the world with online transfers etc. Cheques don't exist any more in the rest of the world.
 
Katamarino said:
That in itself is hopelessly outdated. I don't understand why the US banking system is so old fashioned. It needs to join the rest of the world with online transfers etc. Cheques don't exist any more in the rest of the world.
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not everyone has a computer

not everyone has internet access at home
 
Katamarino said:
That in itself is hopelessly outdated. I don't understand why the US banking system is so old fashioned. It needs to join the rest of the world with online transfers etc. Cheques don't exist any more in the rest of the world.
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I don’t understand you.
 
wayne said:
Our postal worker is having issues again. We're in a townhome with a central mailbox set--up; three units like PO boxes in each with a couple of larger boxes at the bottom for packages. Twice last week she put mail in our box slot. First time it was for people at three other addresses. Second time is was for 6 other addresses. Plus our mail too.

My wife saw a posting in the neigh orhood FB group saying another person or two had the same thing.

Just nuts. It's like she just gets tired if it and stuffs the mail into some box at random.

It has happened before and I submitted a complaint. They addressed it. Seems to be back again, so I submitted another complaint.



Wayne
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Good for you. I have a friend who is a postal carrier. She is a single mother who works long miserable hours, rain or shine, for idiot management. Most people wouldn’t last a day in the job. I’m glad you feel entitled to add to her burden
 
Morgan3820 said:
Good for you. I have a friend who is a postal carrier. She is a single mother who works long miserable hours, rain or shine, for idiot management. Most people wouldn’t last a day in the job. I’m glad you feel entitled to add to her burden
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Really?

Someone is failing miserably at their job and that should be ok?

My grandfather was a postal worker as well. Worked his way up from letter carrier, on foot, to postmaster at his location. He would have been appalled by this.

Last time I posted a complaint another carrier was covering our route some days after that and he didn't have good things to say about her work ethic either. Apparently her coworkers knew she was a problem. Heck, management might too, but with a union it can be hard to get rid of the underperformers.

The postal worker who delivered to our prior address was great. We always said hi to him if we were out when he came by and gave him a Christmas card and gift.
 
wayne said:
Really?

Someone is failing miserably at their job and that should be ok?

My grandfather was a postal worker as well. Worked his way up from letter carrier, on foot, to postmaster at his location. He would have been appalled by this.

Last time I posted a complaint another carrier was covering our route some days after that and he didn't have good things to say about her work ethic either. Apparently her coworkers knew she was a problem. Heck, management might too, but with a union it can be hard to get rid of the underperformers.

The postal worker who delivered to our prior address was great. We always said hi to him if we were out when he came by and gave him a Christmas card and gift.
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Yes. Really. Don’t know why it matters anyway. Entitlements payments are direct deposited
 
Bob Noel said:
not everyone has a computer

not everyone has internet access at home
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That seems like an easier problem to fix than the Post Office. Especially once StarLink is operational in a few months.
 
I ordered 2 separate items to be shipped by USPS about a month ago.

They marked it as out for delivery the beginning of this month, then delivery attempted "but no secure location found". I looked through my security footage on that day and there was no mailtruck to be seen anywhere during that supposed delivery attempt. Complete b/s - they never attempted any kind of delivery - someone just marked it as: "well, we tried".

Went online to re-schedule delivery for a week later. That day came and went, and they never even lied about attempting delivery. Just... nothing.

Crickets ever since.
 
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Katamarino said:
That in itself is hopelessly outdated. I don't understand why the US banking system is so old fashioned. It needs to join the rest of the world with online transfers etc. Cheques don't exist any more in the rest of the world.
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Huh? Sure they do. They aren't used as much, but they exist.
 
I'm doing a car restoration and don't have time to run to NAPA/etc during the day (there's no auto parts store in our town, so it's an hour round trip to grab something), so I am ordering a lot of small bits and pieces (hoses, clamps, paint, etc) from Ebay, Amazon, and some small companies that specialize in the kind of car i'm restoring.

While I've seen a slowdown, things are still arriving in a pretty reasonable timeline in my experience.

PS, on package deliver, note that the shippers are freaking out, as they are already operating overtime, and are expecting a massive volume increase for Christmas this year. If you are thinking of shipping something not holiday related, I'd get it out now, way before Thanksgiving. (Now I need to take my own advice and get some of my take off parts listed for sale so I can get them in the mail and out of my garage)
 
It has been quite frustrating. Two packages lately. The one that was tracked as "out for delivery" I picked up at their facility five days later. A second package that was out for delivery today did not come as promised and now the tracker says it's gonna be late with no time for delivery specified.

I get it that sometimes things are gonna be late especially in the rush of the season. But, if it's "on the vehicle" and "out for delivery" it should be delivered that day. Some bad miscommunication somewhere. Who runs a business this way ... oh wait ... nevermind! :skeptical:
 
flhrci said:
Tomorrow I am going on 5 business days since I mailed my ballot in. I have been having mail issues at my new address so I also sent myself an empty envelope. 4 days for it to go 10 miles.

The ballot just may not have been registered as received by the board of elections yet but I used to get mail much quicker than this.

The slow down is real. I know the Post Office has financial issues but their service seems to be not as good as it was a few years ago.
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Have an order that arrived 200 miles from my house and has been "In Transit to Next Facility" for 5 days.
 
Sent my oil sample to Blackstone for analysis 6 weeks ago, with tracking. About 100 miles as the crow flies. Still waiting on arrival at their lab.
 
cessna182b said:
I haven't seen anyone else put forth this idea, but I am of the opinion that the time has come to abolish the USPS. Physical delivery of papers is by now an obsolete concept. The need can be filled by telecommunications.
This, of course, makes the Postal Service an expensive, troublesome, Anachronism. I pay all my bills online - and receive incoming funds by direct deposit. So 99 percent of the stuff that shows up in my mailbox is unwanted
trash. I hardly ever mail a letter anymore. Package delivery is another matter - but that part could be sold off to become a profit-making enterprise (assuming that it could compete with the likes of UPS and FedEX).

Dave
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Do you understand how email works? Just curious. I pay a few of my bills online (medical insurance and the phone bill) and use direct deposit for my paycheck.

Glad it's that convenient for you. Obviously you haven't dealt with the IRS or Social Security or other Federal agencies. They are not allowed to communicate electronically. If I have a question, it's one that isn't covered on the websites, hence I call the local office and if lucky, someone who knows the answer will be around. However, any legal notification from any of those agencies must be on paper and thru the USPS. As must my response.

Not the scam phone calls from SSA or the FBI (that one is a federal felony) Turns out the IRS screwed up a quarterly payment in April 2019, so this summer I got a letter (with tracking number) annoying me. But the advantage of paper checks....I had the bank statement with the scanned copy of the cashed check. Problem solved.

Second reason - it's in the Consitution. Requires an Amendment. Good luck with that.

Third reason - continues the first reason. Unless it's changed in the past 4 years, any classified materials (DOD, other acronyms, etc) unless being hand-carried by authorized courier, is required to go by USPS. USPS facilities & employees are considered vetted and secure, neither FedEx nor UPS can say the same.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I'm pretty sure you haven't read this thread. I still send checks by mail, and the occasional package that doesn't need the services of FedEx, UPS, and so forth. My single experience with automatic bill pay was with a company that was churning accounts and the only way I could stop the BS was to close open an entirely new checking account and close the old one. There no f***ing way a payment happens unless I initiate it anymore. That means I write a check and send it by the USPS.
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I relate to your concerns with giving every vendor access to your account that they can pull from at will. That said, your implementation sounds like a lot of extra work, and involves the USPS and tons of human processing which is error prone. Are you actually filling these out by hand and mailing them?

In order to strike a balance with this, I use Privacy.com which allows me to create a unique credit card number for every merchant. I can then set hard monthly limits to ensure they can’t over charge me. I can also disable any of the cards with a single click.

For vendors that do not accept credit card, I can send a check via my banks web interface to them at no cost to me. Maybe that’s what you’re doing for all checks? I prefer to do that as a last resort, as I have had the checks go missing before.
 
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The USPS tracking system had to be about the most poorly-designed tracking system ever. I can view where the package is at any point with UPS/FedEx including where the truck is at when it's out for delivery. USPS can't even give me an accurate estimate of whether they even have the package in their possession, lol. Joke of an organization.
 
Katamarino said:
That in itself is hopelessly outdated. I don't understand why the US banking system is so old fashioned. It needs to join the rest of the world with online transfers etc. Cheques don't exist any more in the rest of the world.
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Partly because a lot of places (still) charge fees - sometimes significant fees - for the "privilege of online payments. I still pay a few things by mail because I won't pay 10-20x the cost of postage to do it online and let them reap the cost savings of not paying folks to open the envelopes and scan the checks.
 
jesse said:
I relate to your concerns with giving every vendor access to your account that they can pull from at will. That said, your implementation sounds like a lot of extra work, and involves the USPS and tons of human processing which is error prone. Are you actually filling these out by hand and mailing them?

In order to strike a balance with this, I use Privacy.com which allows me to create a unique credit card number for every merchant. I can then set hard monthly limits to ensure they can’t over charge me. I can also disable any of the cards with a single click.

For vendors that do not accept credit card, I can send a check via my banks web interface to them at no cost to me. Maybe that’s what you’re doing for all checks? I prefer to do that as a last resort, as I have had the checks go missing before.
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Up until this year, I've had no problems with the USPS. Yes, I write checks by hand and mail them. It takes me all of about an 20 minutes, or less, a week to see what has cleared, and send the next lot out. I've only two to 4 bills per week. Oddly, it's back to normal now and checks clear inside a week. I'd rather have error-prone that theft. The one time I caught an error, it took 5 minutes for the bank (Bank of America, of all places- we all know their reputation) to fix it. The error is easier to fix than the malfeasance. Having said all that, I will look into your suggestion.

I also have this problem with some of the people I pay:
wsuffa said:
Partly because a lot of places (still) charge fees - sometimes significant fees - for the "privilege of online payments. I still pay a few things by mail because I won't pay 10-20x the cost of postage to do it online and let them reap the cost savings of not paying folks to open the envelopes and scan the checks.
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Daleandee said:
It has been quite frustrating. Two packages lately. The one that was tracked as "out for delivery" I picked up at their facility five days later. A second package that was out for delivery today did not come as promised and now the tracker says it's gonna be late with no time for delivery specified.

I get it that sometimes things are gonna be late especially in the rush of the season. But, if it's "on the vehicle" and "out for delivery" it should be delivered that day. Some bad miscommunication somewhere. Who runs a business this way ... oh wait ... nevermind! :skeptical:
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USPS isn't alone...UPS sent a shipment from India, then turned it around and sent it back to Indian customs. Apparently, my employer is a largen enough customer that they traced the package and sent it back to the USA, I got it last week after 2 months enroute. I heard today UPS and FedEx are shipping vaccine...I hope they do better than my experience.
 
Holiday shipping time plus Covid. Oh boy.

Had an employee PC self destruct Friday. USPS couldn’t do next day on the replacement laptop at all. UPS was cheapest at $144.

We drop shipped her a new monitor from Amazon. It was cheaper than shipping one from here. Ha.
 
All your checks are going to be electronically presented these days anyway so there's little difference between sending them a check and clicking the button on your banks bill payment website. (Which is totally different than giving the vendor your details and allowing direct debit.)
 
I've seen more problems with mailed checks than electronic money payments. I mailed a check, only to have it (and the recipient's other mail) stolen out of the destination mailbox. Coincidentally, about a month later, I got a number of fraudulent ACH transactions and an actual forged check that had the correct check and routing number but was clearly from a different person. All they need to see is your physical check to know your routing and account numbers. At least when there's fraud on a credit card, they simply issue a new one. It's more of a PITA getting a new checking account.
 
Try FedEx Ground. :eek:

I had four chairs and a table ordered. The table got sent, then the four chairs, in two boxes. Originally one was supposed to arrive on a Sunday, but I didn't believe that. One box of chairs arrived on Monday, with nothing about a second box, even the label didn't say 1 of 2 or 2 of 2, plus the "invoice" in the box said "4 chairs"; that was the retailer's fault. I finally found drilling into the data on FedEx that there were two boxes of chairs, but oddly they had the same tracking number. o_O Then the table was listed to arrive on Tuesday, "out for delivery" and the second box of chairs was now listed as "Pending", which was a bit concerning. Late on Tuesday, after 9 pm, box 2 is delivered, but no table. On Wednesday the table is listed to be delivered on Wednesday, "out for delivery". No delivery. Rinse and repeat on Thursday.

Friday comes and the table is delivered with three other packages.

Earlier in the year we had another delivery from FedEx Ground. It arrives in the metro area on day and no updates on their site for two days and then it is at another location in the metro area. It more or less went by my home on the way from one FedEx Ground facility to another. Then two more days and it's finally delivered. It spent four days just sitting around at one or another FedEx Ground facility in the metro area. :mad:
 
Everskyward said:
I've seen more problems with mailed checks than electronic money payments. I mailed a check, only to have it (and the recipient's other mail) stolen out of the destination mailbox. Coincidentally, about a month later, I got a number of fraudulent ACH transactions and an actual forged check that had the correct check and routing number but was clearly from a different person. All they need to see is your physical check to know your routing and account numbers. At least when there's fraud on a credit card, they simply issue a new one. It's more of a PITA getting a new checking account.
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You just can't win. See post # 25: https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/post-office-slow-down-is-real.128844/#post-2993710
 
murphey said:
Second reason - it's in the Consitution. Requires an Amendment. Good luck with that.
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The Constitution authorizes congress to establish a postal system but does not require it nor does it say they can have a monopoly. The other stuff about IRS and classified delivery is noise. Everything can change if needed and the USPS needs to seriously up it's game if it thinks it's going stay around.

https://www.cato.org/blog/us-postal-service-constitution
 
chartbundle said:
All your checks are going to be electronically presented these days anyway so there's little difference between sending them a check and clicking the button on your banks bill payment website. (Which is totally different than giving the vendor your details and allowing direct debit.)
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If I do online bill pay through my bank, they cut a check and mail it to the recipient. True. And I know I'm not alone. Each bank handles it differently.
 
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