USPS service is horrendous lately
PeakRarities
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Sold a couple items on eBay this past weekend, I got them packed up and shipped out on Monday afternoon on 1/30
Package 1 : USPS express being sent to Cali. Expensive item, cost me about $60 to ship with insurance through eBay. Original delivery guarantee was 2/1 (2 business days). Package wasn’t delivered until 2/3, so double their time estimate. I’m pretty sure they will refund this one if I request it so I will probably do that tomorrow.
Package 2: vaultbox, shipped out same time with the other package. Original delivery estimate 2/2. As of today, there hasn’t been a scan since it left the west palm distribution center and it just says “in transit, arriving late”
I’m sure there’s plenty of excuses, inclement weather, covid, you know the usual. What exactly am I paying for? I feel like I’m being ripped off every single time I use USPS, nothing makes it on time and the buyers of the items start to get antsy. I could mail a letter with a 50c stamp would get there quicker. I shipped another coin yesterday and had to wait in line for an hour because they had one poor guy at the counter. While I was in line, I watched them refund 2 other customers for late express shipments
Then to send a service request, that they rarely even answer, you have to fill out a bunch of info, sender and recipient address, services chosen etc WHY? they have the tracking number and all the associated info already. They never even answer the inquiries, if you’re lucky you’ll get some canned response via email a week later. Thanks for listening to me complain.
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Amen brother.
I’ve had way more problems with UPS and FedEx than I’ve ever had with USPS.
US and British coin collector, and creator of The Ultimate Chuck E. Cheese's and Showbiz Pizza Place Token & Ticket Guide
That’s the problem. You can’t win these days no matter who it is. FedEx hasn’t wronged me yet, I’ll try to use them next time
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I haven't had trouble with outgoing shipments but incoming ones have been crazy,especially last week.
Multiple packages were days late, and being routed to unusual centers. One went from Phoenix to Vegas to LA to Vegas (my local usps last stop). One FedEx package from our host went from CA to CA to Tennessee to my nearby FedEx place in Arizona... 4 days late.
I have one going to pcgs due Monday... Not holding my breath! All my other outbound packages have been going well fortunately. More worried about outgoing since they are more likely to cost me money.
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For the frequency that some members appear to ship coins around the country I'd think they would figure out the fastest, most economical ways to accomplish that. Instead, it seems the choice is to use a service they have already determined doesn't work for them and then to complain about it. This never seems to end. I admittedly don't buy/sell very often and don't have problems with shipment delays. I use what is most expeditious, based on what I've experienced, when I send something and am at the mercy of the seller when I buy. I don't seem to have the snags that others encounter, maybe I'm lucky. What I don't understand is the need to whine about it here.
Is our society so hectic today that a 1-2 day delay is too much to accept??
You can file the express claim online on the usps website. Sign into the website, click request a refund, plug in the tracking number. They mail you the check. Very simple.
When I pay more than $60 to ship a single coin? Yes, I would like the item to be delivered in 1-2 days, as it was guaranteed. It would be nice if the buyer receives the item on time so that I don’t have to submit service requests and send them apologies about the delays that I didn’t cause. I don’t sell things often and I’m not a dealer. The one week where I had to ship 3 items I was relaying my experience and yes, I was complaining about it. My thread title wasn’t misleading, and it was quite clear about what I would be writing about. If you didn’t want to read a complaint, you could have ignored it and moved on. Just sayin
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Do like others have suggested, file the claim and get a refund. After that, use a different service. It's simple, really, and if you can't stand someone who doesn't agree with you all the time and give "happy talk" or complain along with you, I don't know what else to say. Life is too short to complain about stuff like this but it almost seems like sport at this forum.
Good luck, I hope everything works out for you.
It could also be said that life is too short for you to keep reading these threads and complain about them. You’ve acknowledged that these threads bother you. Why keep reading them?
US and British coin collector, and creator of The Ultimate Chuck E. Cheese's and Showbiz Pizza Place Token & Ticket Guide
Just trying to get the OP to consider some alternate thoughts and offering a little advice that's worked for me, trying a different, proven service that works. Thanks for your thoughts, carry on.
Good customer service is in short supply everywhere it seems these days. I sent two submissions to NGC in Jan via FedEx, I use them because I get good discounts. My package arrived in two days and my submissions were logged in quickly, the standard level coins are on the way back to me now. The econ will take a bit longer.
My Collection of Old Holders
Never a slave to one plastic brand will I ever be.
“Can’t stand someone that doesn’t give happy talk”?
I’m not sure what gave you that idea, but I simply wrote a response to you complaining about my complaining. I never expect universal agreement on anything I post, but if you make a comment in opposition that I don’t agree with, I am going to reply. If your opinion that “Iife is too short to complain” then that’s fine, but you could apply that same logic to you leaving a comment complaining about my complaining. We discuss many things on this forum that are trivial and meaningless in the grand scheme of life.
I make more than my fair share of positive, encouraging contributions to this forum, and if I want to post one complaint thread than so be it. I just don’t quite see what you were trying to achieve with your original comment that wasn’t offering any specific advice or solution, other than calling me out for complaining.
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Jesus, man, let it go already, you win. Have a nice evening.
The quality of service provided is entirely up to the post office. The fact they cannot go out of business no doubt has some effect on what you get.
I think you are out of line here and seem to be particularly calling out one board member for documenting an issue that could affect everyone here. Notifying others of bad shipping service is a good thing and alerts others to the issues. As said on this thread, you can't win with any of the shipping services.
Well, snail mail is just too nice of a name for USPS. I mailed a envelope with a payment to a seller on BST on 11/19/2022. The last scan date is 1/22/2023. I have already filed a report with them and of course it is still in transit. The item is coming up on 3 moths and USPS is just not interested in trying to find it. I had to cancel the payment on the transaction and then mailed a new payment via UPS. It was delivered in less than 4 days . The excuses that USPS gives you are just ridiculous. Like it is COVID/not enough employees at work/the truckers are to blame/ and the winner is "I have looked for 15 minutes and still can't find it". Sorry about the soapbox rant, but i have to take a package to UPS.
USN & USAF retired 1971-1993
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I have to sweat every delivery, and yet my bills arrive timely... what gives?
I am a newer collector (started April 2020), and I primarily focus on U.S. Half Cents and Type Coins. Early copper is my favorite.
The PO has been bad for a long time. You've just been lucky.
Sorry for the struggles @DeplorableDan
As coins become more costly we will continue to see more issues. I had an empty box delivered by a UPS driver that was supposed to have 5 Dan Carr coins with mintages of 4 or less each (as well as 4 other coins). UPS didn't seem to care about finding them. I doubt any employee was held accountable.
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$5 Type Set https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/u-s-coins/type-sets/half-eagle-type-set-circulation-strikes-1795-1929/album/344192
CBH Set https://www.pcgs.com/setregistry/everyman-collections/everyman-half-dollars/everyman-capped-bust-half-dollars-1807-1839/album/345572
Whew, some sad stories, particularly the last one.
For the fortunate few, like me, the bullet dodging may end.
I will not use UPS for coins. The marketing company I operate has probably lost about 80-100k in gross revenue the past 6 months because of lost, missing, or damaged packages. We send out medical supplies that the insurance pays quite a bit for, but often times the packages get delivered to the wrong address, lost, or severely damaged. The claims process leaves much to be desired, and their customer service is a useless as USPS is.
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Usps will refund the postage but not the insurance. And I would agree with the recommendation for the online refund, just have your numismatic company registered online, plus you get a discount if you have a corporate express account and it makes it easier to ship it. Pay a few hundred dollars a year for insurance through Hugh Wood and you can get coverage for most all shipments with tracking and save yourself over the extortionate usps rates.
UPS?
'Nuff said.
I actually was considering that today. I made about 3-4 purchases in the past couple months that were intended to be flip coins for profit. Probably not a bad idea to register as an LLC and write off my expenses, as well as obtaining private insurance and be able to use fedex shipping.
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Well, now I'm really glad I insured my most recent shipment fully. Cost me about $30, but now I'm glad I did it.
Coin Photographer.
Funnily enough, both our UPS and Fedex in our new town are very good, we know the drivers and they are good and honest. We are having, as a whole community, a terrible time with USPS and it seems to be our delivery person - many lost packages and mail never arriving, all in our localized area. I am having to drive 20 miles tomorrow to go to the main USPS location in our city to retrieve a package that they will not allow me to get at our local location, and to report 2 missing packages. This seems to be a localized issue as we lived in H-town for 20 years and did not have a single issue.
I have not had any troubles sending or receiving through USPS...your milage and time may, and apparently does vary.
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I just finished an experience with a USPS claim, and as many here have said they do not like to pay their claims. They will always make the issue "proof of value", but if you have the ebay transaction and proof you were paid you should be covered. But they will make it miserable for you and likely deny the claim a couple times.
In my case I provided an invoice, statement of value by a coin dealer, and a copy of the refund check, and still they denied it twice. I was on my final appeal when the coin was delivered after 59 days.
I will be using private insurance in the future.
This has been discussed elsewhere extensively but you don’t need to be an LLC to operate as a business or treated as one by the IRS. You do need to actually operate a business though. This is not tax advice, but flipping a few coins a year is unlikely to meet the IRS tests by itself. You can find plenty of info on irs.gov.
Two shipments is too small of a sample size to make such a declaration.
My $2000 package was in this pile at the UPS store.
I have the worst mail carrier on the planet and I’m not exaggerating one bit😡
The neighborhood where I used to live was used for mail carrier training. You probably got one of the graduates.
Yes it is - planning ship big shipment to CAC?
I know it all depends on what part of the country you live in so YMMV, but where I live FedEx is the worst. I once had FedEx "deliver" a package 5 miles from my house in a ditch. Luckily an honest stranger found the package and drove it to my house.
I have never had any troubles with UPS, but USPS is actually the best IMHO. The most recent example, I purchased/paid for a coin on Saturday, January 28th, and the coin was delivered to my PO Box on Monday, January 30th, Tampa, FL to Oklahoma.
Anyone can open a usps corporate express account, you can call the account by your name or a made up name. I realize most people don't have them and for some reason usps corporate accounts are not popular but they do save and you can just enter your corporate account number and drop the express envelope, etc. in the mail intake.
In the past couple weeks I've had an Express take 3 days (at least I get my money back) and a package rip open and spill all the contents. They delivered an empty box and tried to close the missing mail request because the package was "delivered".
You would think there would be an automated way to flag a package if it suddenly lost a significant amount of weight during transit. I guess they're $160B in debt for a reason
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Got a Christmas card returned to me this past Christmas as, "undeliverable as addressed no such address". Was sent to my brother who has lived at the same address for 20+years. Used the same five year old file to print the address labels. Asked him if he moved and forgot to tell me. He said no.
Then he noted, "the government wants to be in charge of a National Healthcare Plan and they can't even get the mail right and they have been doing that for almost 250 years!"
For me USPS has typically been the best but all 3, USPS, UPS and FedEx have had their ups and downs with the ups far outweighing the downs. The tracking at USPS is getting better but leaves a lot to be desired...sometimes it takes a couple of days for updates to show up. And I still don't know what '2 Day Priority Mail' means...I sent a package to my daughter via that service on Wednesday dropping it off directly at the PO and the anticipated delivery date is today. I know it is business days but that is more than 2! Hmmm...
K
It doesn't mean anything. From the Domestic Mail Manual:
"Service objectives for delivery are 1 to 3 days; however, the USPS does not guarantee the delivery time."
My USPS carrier and my local office are both awesome. I have had a few delays from apparent misrouting over the years. Problems seem to be regional or local. Same for UPS and FedEx I would guess. I have a second home in WA, and have had numerous delays on the receiving end in WA when it comes to large (freight) items, not so in TX.
I had someone call today hoping to find someone who had a solution for shipping around $7K or 30# of 90% silver to Florida. I told him to do a box and registered insured as the best option. I told him that no one with private insurance would do it for him cheaply.
A fellow Forum member helped us out by mailing us a couple 2021-D half dollars to get our collections current again, so nowhere near the magnitude of a lot of the above posts. They were mailed on 6/6/22 and "disappeared" from their radar soon afterwards. So guess what showed up in my P.O. Box the other day - - 8 months later?!
Actually the reinsurers are pretty reasonable.
I told him that I don't know anyone with private insurance who would ship it for him, also customers are better off shipping their own valuables, dealers don't want to be running a shipping company. I was talking to a dealer last week who has customers come in to get coins graded, but he isn't cheap and often charges around $50/coin even for economy service which I think is just too high, plus he says that it may be weeks before he gets to shipping them to the grading company.
I have had an annoying problem with usps offices from time to time dropping off items that are already properly labeled and shipped taking several days to get scanned at the local post office. Of course when questioned they say that everything goes out the same day, but often they don't. I dropped off several ebay sales in the incoming mail chute on Saturday; the envelope (standard) went out but the other two first class items did not get scanned until this morning.
During the height of the Covid scamdemic the USPS suspended all delivery guarantees for Express. Does anyone know when they resumed honoring said guarantee?
RIP Mom- 1932-2012
They did in fact approve a refund for the express shipment. I filled out all the info online and I presume I’ll get a check in the mail.
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Usps changed their cut off time for the guarantee, instead of 1030 am or noon, it is often now end of day, around 6pm, they were getting too many guarantee claims I guess. I have asked when the old guarantee times may resume and they doubted they would. Typical corporate inertia though they try their best.
I sent 2 high value orders in the same box to PCGS for express grading via FedEx Priority overnight on 1/30. The box was stranded in Fort Worth, Texas for 6 days because of the inclement weather flight delays I guess. Finally arrived 2/06, sigh of relief! I wasn't sweating bullets, but I was sweating! I'll be filing a claim with FedEx for the shipping guarantee.
Wayne
www.waynedriskillminiatures.com
Personally I wouldn't request a refund for an express package which arrived a day or 2 late. They rely on commercial flights which may get delayed or canceled and is out of their control. I mean I got essentially what I paid for. As to the second, I'd be all over them due to a lack of tracking. If there was nothing after a day or so you should have called your local P O and had them look into it.
I finally got one of those round a bouts where the package was used down the road for a ping pong object and instead of coming my way it went back to where it came from. Was just a cheap eBay item so I don't have the hots to get it ASAP.