Slow USPS Deliveries - Grumpy Old Men Complaining About Post Office, Ebay, & Kids On The Lawn

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I ordered a set of six paperback books on Amazon to be shipped by the third party retailer. It was reported as being shipped by the retailer in Benton Harbor, Michigan on 27 November, and the USPS tracked it as being accepted on 1 December in Benton Harbor (pretty near Chicago).

Benton Harbor is about an eight and a half hour drive from my home, but 15 days after the USPS acknowledged receipt, the package hasn't arrived, and there have been no further tracking updates.

Today, I messaged the retailer via Amazon, inquiring about the delay, and received the following reply:

Hello, This package has been turned over to the United States Postal Service. Here is the response we received when we called USPS to inquire about estimated delivery dates: "Alert: USPS is experiencing unprecedented volume increases and limited employee availability due to the impacts of COVID-19. We appreciate your patience and remain committed to delivering the holidays to you." We sincerely apologize for this very frustrating delay.

Sadly, the retailer's Amazon account is getting hammered with bad ratings because of the USPS delays.

Send in the

WTHR TV 13 Indianapolis just ran a piece on mail backed up in Indianapolis at 6pm. The airport sorting hub for packages is getting in twice the volume of packages arriving for delivery, some priority mail, than it can ship out daily. Some mail has been backed up for two weeks. Mail is being shoved into outbound trucks without sorting going off to where ever at times. They said letter mail was flowing better for now.

When the packages get backed up, I could see the USPS placing media mail, like my package, at the bottom of the priority list. As more customers pay for priority mail shipments a week to ten days before Christmas, there's no telling how much longer media mail and first class packages may be delayed.

From one Hoosierboy to another I was the WRTV story. Hoping that explains the 4 different ebay shipments from late Nov and early December that have not made it to Bloomington. They were mailed without tracking. Items I have bought since then shipped with tracking have all arrived.

On the FedEx side, I know my HR Harmer lots won last Thursday are arriving tomorrow.

Harmer sent mine via USPS.

Ouch!!!!

Personally, I haven't had any problems. Not sure what I am doing right or wrong

However I am reminded of the old saw - USPS: When it absolutely, positively, has to get there eventually.

I got a package from Japan via FedEx earlier this month: 37½ hours from Yokohama to Berkeley.

On the flip side of this, I ordered something from Japan on the Amazon Marketplace on October 30th. Because of the reduction of commercial flights due to COVID, Japan Post is only handling parcels to the U.S. by surface mail, so I'm still waiting for it, 48 days later. (My estimated delivery window actually begins today.)

Yes, I get Kelleher auction catalog from Hong Kong to Indiana in 48 hours or less via FedEx. (Must be significantly cheaper to print those catalogs in Hong Kong than in the US to make international 2 day shipping reasonable.) The Christmas ornaments my wife ordered on Amazon and did not realize were coming from China will be here about April.

I had won an auction on ebay of a China souvenir sheet back in March. Wasn't that valuable, so when it didn't show up even though the tracking # said the Hong Kong postal service had it I never asked for a refund. In the middle of July it finally showed up in my mailbox.

One packet I purchased from overseas took longer to arrive the closer it got: 4 days to travel 3,200 miles (Paris to NY), 5 days to travel 320 miles (NY to VA) then 6 days to travel 3.2 miles!

The bad thing is with ebay and their managed payments. You have to send tracking information to the buyer and in the meantime ebay puts your funds on hold until delivered. We get penalized for the slowness of the postal system. Its a very time consuming process.
Mike

In the next upgrade of the USPS package and letter tracking system, perhaps they should add a field to include the GPS coordinate of the package scanner at the time the scan was made.