VCCA Home Forums GENERAL DISCUSSION General Discussions Gone Postal

Please don't misconstrue this post as me telling you how to how to ship your invaluable and sometimes irreplaceable items as some of you who use usps have been kind enough to help me with my loss but I feel I need to share my experience-I've wanted to post for days now but have been too busy being insulted,berated and simply abused by 3 local post offices concerning their loss of every bracket for my 1930 4dr sedan-my dream car-the project that makes being disabled some thing to live for-after being informed by the postmaster that in 20 years she has never-ever seen a lost package returned and as far as the insurance I paid for-forget it-I left extremely depressed and still am-I share part of the blame as I didn't send fedx or ups as I knew I should have because I could sit at home and track online-now I have a brand new wooden body sitting in Indiana with no way to reinforce it and dying to sit back and admire it-I apologize for rambling on but if I can save one person from this experience I feel it's worth it-no one deserves to be treated as I have and they make it impossible to file complaint(like it would do any good)-thanks for listening and being my support group here at VCCA-sincerely Terry Toomey #046505

Not to minimize your frustration with USPS but I had the same type of reaction from FEDEX two times with parts that were shipped to me. The only excuse I got was "Well the contract delivery driver couldn't find your place. We don't know where your package is." Which is strange since UPS and DHL and Old Dominion all found me on the first go round.

I think that the problems with USPS are mostly with the local Post Offices.

The problem is not only with the local post office but the entire US Postal Service as well. Their rates constantly go up and their service constantly goes down.

What Terry is going through is typical and he is correct too regarding their insurance. Don't waste your money! The same goes for their tracking as well.

I just had yet another issue with the stupid post office over an important letter that they couldn't deliver. I sent the letter to a business and the business is located right across the street from the post office that was delivering the letter. The letter couldn't be delivered because the "address couldn't be located"! DUH!!!! It took the post office over two weeks to return the letter to me, and the business that I sent the letter to is only 7 miles from my house! Another DUH!!!!!

When I contacted the business and told them what was going on with the letter and the morons at the post office, they were irate. And, they had a good reason to be upset too because the post office has been delivering mail to them in that small community for over 10 years! One more DUH!!!!

And yes.....the letter had both the correct name and the correct address on the envelope.

I reckon maybe I have been lucky to live where I do...

Is this not a LOCAL ISSUE?

If you look at everything that goes on with the US Postal Service you will find that many of the local problems either stem directly or indirectly from higher up in the postal service.

Yes, that one example with the letter is definitely a local issue. However, most of the problems that I have had with the post office in the past 20 years came from the postal service as a whole, not locally. And, unless you have been involved with many different issues regarding the postal service then unfortunately you are on the outside looking in.

I've generally had pretty good luck the USPS with the exception of occasionally getting the neighbors mail when a sub is running the route. The only packages I've had returned because they couldn't find me (once) or couldn't find the person I was sending to (once) was UPS.

I have had the exact same problem on occasion with FedEx. They said that they couldn't find me (even though they have been coming to my house for years), but each time it happened it was a new driver on the route and he was either in too much of a hurry or too lazy to look at the route map. Anyway, FedEx did call each time to find out where I lived and they sent someone else out with the package.

OK, my turn.

I was with the postal service for 20 years. 11 of them as a "Local Postmaster."

Yes, it would take longer to return as the letter ends up in the Central Markup Unit at a Sectional Center office. For me, that was San Francisco. The were always backed up and 'Return to Sender mail' was apparently the last stuff that was worked.

Insurance is paid. You need to be able to prove the value of the item. One nice thing about postal insurance is that either the sender or receiver can file the claim.

Now for my UPS story. A few years ago, I bought a non-vintage Fender Twin Reverb guitar amplifier on eBay. The guy packed it well and I couldn't wait for UPS to show up with it. I saw the truck pull up, saw him dashing across the street and my lawn. And then I heard a loud thump as he threw it on my porch. I'm not sure if he wanted to get out of there before I saw it, or if he caused the damage.

Anyway, the package was in tatters. The amp itself had the top broken off and pushed back into place.

It was insured. I called UPS and was told only the sender could file the claim. When I called the sender, they said to have UPS pick it up so the local claims office could inspect it.

Fine. When I did, they picked it up without a work. BUT, THEY SHIPPED IT BACK TO THE SENDER AS IS. I never got a chance to wrap it for shipping.

It was totaled when it got back there. UPS refused to pay the claim because it wasn't wrapped.

The sender and I went round-and-round, him blaming me for not packaging it better, etc.

To sum it up, we all have our horror stories about USPS, UPS and Fedex. Yet we have to use someone to ship our goodies. My suggestion is take pictures of it, wrap it really good (so you can drop it from 8 feet and not worry), buy insurance (and ask what is covered and how the value is determined), buy some sort of tracking (even after the above story, I prefer UPS or FEDEX).

USPS won't be around much longer anyway. First class mail volume has been decimated by email and online bill paying, junk mail has been decimated by the internet and parcel post has been gutted by UPS first and FEDEX later.

And referring to the heading of this thread, I've seen workers go 'Postal.' A guy beat up the supervisor right on the workroom floor. I've seen people hauled off to jail by the postal inspectors for stealing.

Believe it or not, the postal service is a very stressful job. Probably more so today as they are stuck with the less profitable deliveries and management feels they need to tighten the screws even more to please the ultimate managers, the public.

Gee, thanks for letting me vent! I've out of that place for 20 years but postal stories still bug me.

Hi Jim!

Since you are an ex-postal worker, thanks for being factual about your experience with the post office. I have found that most people that work at the post office will be honest about their jobs and what actually goes on in the post office that most folks are not aware of.

I can see how working for the post office can be very stressful, especially if you are a dedicated worker and you want to do a good job and you are constantly dealing with management. Believe me, after dealing with various issues with the post office for many, many years, I have learned first-hand about some of the things that go on there and you have confirmed that as well.

Now, I have a UPS story very similar to yours: I had a 1932-33 Chevrolet accessory Potter trunk shipped to me from a fellow VCCA member back east. He was very proficient at shipping Chevrolet parts and this dude was familiar with the way packages are treated by the post office, UPS and etc. so he knew exactly how to crate the Potter trunk. He made a solid plywood crate for the Potter trunk out of 3/4 inch thick plywood. The trunk was suspended in Styrofoam inside of the crate, and the crate was glued and screwed together. This crate was so stout that a tank couldn't crush it...or so we thought! When it arrived here, the entire left side of the solid plywood crate was gone, the top of the crate was ripped off and the Potter Trunk inside was severely damaged. The crate looked like it had been dropped out of an airplane at 40,000 feet!

At first UPS didn't want to pay off because they said (and this is their typical statement) that the trunk had not been packed correctly!! After a UPS representative came to my house and saw the damage to the crate and the Potter trunk they did pay off fully and I received all of my money back in less than a week and they let me keep the trunk as well. I have had some other minor issues with UPS over the years but this was the only major problem that I have ever had with them. In all of the years that I have shipped with UPS they never lost a package and their tracking system never failed to post where my package was on any given day. About five years ago I switched to FedEx because it is easier for me to ship a package through them and their rates tend to be cheaper than UPS also.

Years ago a good friend was postmaster of a medium sized post office, he had spent most of his life time involved in Boy Scouts, and other worthy projects. An over all great guy. He was verbally assaulted by another aquaintance, retired military MSGT., with a temper. The result was my friend had more than enough and punched said retiree. The post master was forced to retire. For 17 years the USPS was involved daily in my employment, relied on them very much. Never ever had a problem

I have had more stuff destroyed by UPS than all other shippers combined. A couple were so bad that I never saw them. Only when I contacted the shipper to find out when the stuff was going to arrive and he checked with UPS did I find out it was damaged in shipment. It was a pristine rear soft top window frame for 1931 Chevy. Never saw it nor the packaging.

I have shipped hundreds and received thousands of items by USPS and if the packaging was done correctly they arrive in good condition and quickly by Priority Mail. The vast majority of damage is poor packaging. Stuff chucking around in the box can bust up what ever is next to it.

This past year I bought a running board in California and had it shipped UPS and it never arrived but the tracking said it was delivered only to have, after several weeks a neighbor who lived up the road from me who found this package which was correctly addressed to me behind the bushes on his front porch. when I called UPS to tell them where it had been found, they said they did not believe me. I also have had excellent service with our U.S. POSTAL SERVICE. I banked by mail for over twenty years, depositing my payroll check and receiving a return envelope with receipt and never once lost a single one. My Lions club was involved in sending large packages every two weeks for over a year to Takrit, Iraq and they were all received in good order, I have trust in the USPS.

hoppy

UPS "lost" newly revulcanized front motor mounts for my '34 I had done at Steele's back in November!!!

It amazes me that the "system" be it USPS, UPS, FedEx or other carriers functions as well as it does. Think about it. Combined these entities process and deliver millions of letters, parcels, boxes or packages of one kind or another to every corner of the earth every day. Out of that number only a very small fraction ends up lost or damaged.

Hells bells, I can lose or damage something in my own shop, just walking from one corner to another---and this sometimes happens daily and sometimes more than once in a day.

I live in an area of Southern California where we do not get home mail delivery and must have any mail sent to a post office box. UPS, Fed-Ex etc. all provide home delivery In my area. It is a real challenge, since I don't always know how a shipper will ship. Many will only use USPS, but won't send to a P.O. box. or can't tell you how shipping will send It. I have tried putting both addresses on the order, but many times It gets rejected since It has a P.O. box number. I found the solution: I get the postmistress a Xmas. present every year and miraculously they look up my P.O. box number If it comes to my physical address.
Richard

Posted by Lexey in the 1929-32 forum:

"On June 6th 2010 I bought a new scooter to help me get around car shows and races-the title was incorrectly sent to the local po(I don't get rr delivery any longer)which is 2 miles from my house and they know where I live as they used to deliver here and I also work on carriers RH drive Subaru(town consists of perhaps a couple thousand people and everyone knows each other)-anyway yesterday I received the title!!!!-my math comes to over 8 months so perhaps my brackets will be found and as I told JunkYardDog, I can use my car as a coffin!"

A couple of comments on shipping: I use both USPS and UPS for shipping. I have shipped over a thousand items by USPS and have only had one problem, that item was shipped to another country and according to USPS the purchaser could never be found.

Making dailey trips to the post office I am amazed at what the public expects the postal workers to do. It is not unusal for a person to walk in with an item to ship and have no box. They ask for a box and have no idea what method they want the item shipped. The item is placed in the box and they expect the postal worker to furnish the tape and anything else required to ship the item. All that time I am waiting in line and getting more frustated by the minute.

On another subject I have recently been told by ebay that I can not give purchasing customers the option of purchasing insurance on items they have bought. They say I am responsible for the safe delivery of the item and to include insurance in the price of the item. This is when shipping by USPS.

DD

eBay tells sellers lots of things but many sellers do what they want anyway.



The central post office for our county is a very large facility. At the counter there are 10 or 11 windows to help customers. Doesn't matter what time of the day you go in there....only one or two windows are open and the waiting line is either all the way through the end of the lobby or sometimes it is out the front door and onto the sidewalk. And, on a day after a holiday......forget it!!!!

I will add a UPS story. I carried a NOS 1948 Pontiac grille to UPS, when I asked to add more insurance they asked what was in the box. When I told them it was a grille for a 1948 Pontiac they said that if something happened to it they wouldn't be able to replace it and refused to ship it. I told them all they had to do was pay the valued amount if something happened to it. They still refused to ship the grille.

DD

The same thing happen to my dad when he tried to ship a stamp collection. They said that they couldn't replace it so they wouldn't ship it. Took the package to another UPS location and they shipped it with no problem.

Car parts are shipped every day through UPS, but it seems that some UPS locations have different "rules" than other UPS shipping places.

That is the problem in a nut shell. A company makes a set of rules on how to handle mail, packages or what ever and someone ad's there two cent's to the rules and so no.

A few days ago I placed an order that was shipped via UPS. I checked the tracking number yesterday and it said that my package had been "remanded to the USPS". It seems UPS is using the postal service to deliver some packages. Isn't that kind of like sleeping with the enemy?

Tiny-The UPS probably finds that it is more cost effective to let the Post Office deliver it, if the consignee is located in a remote or extreme rural area, especially places like the Upper Peninsula in Michigan.

hoppy

I see both UPS and Fed-Ex in our local post office dropping of packages. I fact Fed-Ex was there today when I picked up the mail.

I have never had a problem with UPS or FedX. I have had a problem with USPS.

Problem 1. Some years ago I bought a rear window frame for the 41 Cabriolet. From the many pictures of the frame I could see that it was in excellent shape. Glass and all.

When it arrived, the box was bent. Like it had been used for a step ladder or something. When I opened it I found that the frame was badly bent in the middle and the glass was shattered. Funny thing, the shipper had double packaged it with heavy, stiff cardboard and a couple wraps of bubble wrap. It was as well packaged, given the item, that one could expect. To me it seemed it couldn't have been bent from other packages that it may have encountered en-route. I can't remember if it was insured or not. Probably not. But if it was I wouldn't have filed a claim because I wanted the frame and thought it could be fixed by a chromer (sp).

Paul's Chrome Service did a great job of straightening and re-chroming it, even making the mistake of chroming both sides instead of the just outer one. That poses a delimma, I hate to paint over chrome. I believe that other chrome shops could have done as well also but Pauls rep spaces are just kitty cornered across from me at Hershey so I gave it to him. Nice guy by the way.

Problem 2. A carrier failed to pick up several outgoing packages my son was shipping. He (mail carrier) disregarded the pickup notice that was given him by the post office. On the way back down the other side of the street my son carried his packages and met the carrier across the street at my neighbor's mail box. My son got a good, hot cussin' out about the fact that he couldn't mail pickup from another (different) address, etc, etc. Finally, the carrier angrily snatched up the packages and litterly slung them into the back of his vehicle and scooted off.

We called the branch postmaster who sent a management rep out to talk to us. He explained that wasn't much he could do because the carrier was a union steward. The drift from him was that we might as well suck it up.

My son and I both sent formal complaints via certified mail to the main office postmaster. We received a call but nothing was promised as to what would be done about out complaint. (See union steward, above)

But things did improve with this particular carrier. Bottom line the same carrier became much friendlier and acted in a conscientiously engaged carrier way from then on until he was replaced for some reason, The one we have now is great but in the interim the temporary ones screwed up badly by on many occasions failing to pick up scheduled outgoing packages. My son gave our current one, who never misses pick ups, 50 bucks for Christmas.

As a former federal civil service labor relations specialist for over 18 years, I can tell you that many union workers have no fear of management. Some have a greater degree of loyalty to the union. Depending on the contract, to them, the union becomes, for those less than conscientiously engaged, "boss" and they tend believe that they will be protected from misconduct until all recourse forums have been exhausted or hell freezes over, whichever comes first. Unless management has a "smoking gun" the union/member will prevail in a high percentage of cases. Thus it is a real chore to discharge less than satisfactory employees.

The post office provides a great service and they have many great employees. But unfortunately there a few employees who will use a well packaged 41 rear window frame as a convenient step ladder without any shame or concern whatsoever and there are some who are too lazy to do scheduled pick up of packages among other things such as a sour countenance at the "window." As stated above, many times they have failed to make a pick up and instead leave their pick up notice in our mailbox as part of regular delivery. It seems a protected few can degrade the whole service. Accordingly, in my opinion, it is more the union's fault than it is management's.

I sure hope that I have not stepped on any toes of good conscientiously engaged employees doing journeyman level work no matter the trade or the union they may belong to. My hat is off to them. And they have my respect and praise.

Best,
Charlie

BTW: If you don't already know a management rep cannot discuss anything with a union member, regular employee about personnel policies, practices or working conditions. These matters must be discussed with a steward or higher member of the instant union. The only thing management doesn't have to discuss with the union first is the actual way a job is done. The difference is so narrow that management is often left with so many Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges that there is little discussion between management and employee on anything. If the charge is upheld by the Federal Labor Relations Board then management must write on the blackboard "I will not do this again" many times. Just kidding. Actually, they must post a notice in the workplace that they will cease and desist. As I recall the notice must be up for 60 consecutive days.

BTW2: All carriers provide a great service. The main problem seems to be with individual workers and not the carrier itself.

BTW3: If you don't like the service you are receiving then file a formal complaint. A written complaint is hard for any service to ignore.