Bad weather isn't to blame for *all* delivery woes...

[Vintage VFer]

The lethal combination of Amazon and the USPS has been a real mess since before Christmas. Many parcels that start out with UPS or FedEx now end up at the Post Office purgatory.

We live about two miles from our mailbox. Any parcels too large to fit in the parcel box go back to the PO. We then have to drive over to the delivery facility and wait in the line from hell.

Our rural mail carrier is a contract worker and has obviously never heard of the old, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" code of the Post Office. He skips days, puts our mail in others' boxes, loses items, and can't read/spell. (Yes, we have complained online, on the phone and in person. Rural contract carriers are a whole 'nother thing than real PO carriers. Nobody cares.)

So, DH was driving down our hill this morning and saw a parcel by the side of the road with a rock on it. Out of curiosity, he stopped and picked it up. It was addressed to us. It was a box from Amazon with an order I'd made in the middle of December that I had presumed lost.

I have no idea where the parcel went, how long it has been by the side of the road or who is responsible for the non-delivery.

I do know it had NOTHING to do with storms. We are in the middle of a huge drought.

Unless I missed a huge Sharknado in our area, there is no excuse for this kind of screw up!

[poohpeggy]

Wow, unbelievable! What ever happened to accountability? Its crazy that the mail person can get away with this. Glad you got your package after all.

[Stephanie_B]

Alta you know we have had similar problems. I read somewhere on a forum (either here or Yayas) that you need to contact the 800 number, NOT the local. I did but it didn't improve. We have stuff to entirely different cities and streets (which I don't think is the carrier, I think they have a different person bundling). But on our city forum for our local area (150K people) the same problems I've had with carriers staying we aren't home, driving right past us even when chasing them (to me that says they would hit a kid too if they don't notice an adult running next to them), etc., etc. Often times the delays are "weather related" and the package is in Dallas (less than 30 minutes away) with NO WEATHER issues at all for weeks on end.

And when I see SmartPost I think "cross your fingers and hope it will show up" post. My daughter had a gift card she ordered (why she ordered online for a local store I don't know). It was shipped in a first class envelope from Fort Worth and took THREE WEEKS to get here. She ordered because the day she had the money it was raining and she didn't want to go to the store, figuring it would be here for the birthday a week later (9 days technically). I could have put it off for 8 days and just gone and picked it up. I never thought a gift card would take that long and there was tracking (minimal) stating where it was all the way. Hell I could have WALKED to the point of origin and picked it up over a long weekend.

[alisoncooks]

Anyone else envisioning the crazy mail carrier from Funny Farm?


OP, Sorry you have to deal w/ this.

[Demeris]

Originally Posted by Alta-tude

The lethal combination of Amazon and the USPS has been a real mess since before Christmas. Many parcels that start out with UPS or FedEx now end up at the Post Office purgatory.

We live about two miles from our mailbox. Any parcels too large to fit in the parcel box go back to the PO. We then have to drive over to the delivery facility and wait in the line from hell.

Our rural mail carrier is a contract worker and has obviously never heard of the old, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" code of the Post Office. He skips days, puts our mail in others' boxes, loses items, and can't read/spell. (Yes, we have complained online, on the phone and in person. Rural contract carriers are a whole 'nother thing than real PO carriers. Nobody cares.)

So, DH was driving down our hill this morning and saw a parcel by the side of the road with a rock on it. Out of curiosity, he stopped and picked it up. It was addressed to us. It was a box from Amazon with an order I'd made in the middle of December that I had presumed lost.

I have no idea where the parcel went, how long it has been by the side of the road or who is responsible for the non-delivery.

I do know it had NOTHING to do with storms. We are in the middle of a huge drought.

Unless I missed a huge Sharknado in our area, there is no excuse for this kind of screw up!

I moved to rural AZ in October, and I thought I had been dealing with the USPS office from the depths of heck, but your experiences are far worse than mine.

I have to drive 8 miles to get my mail--no mailboxes out where I live. So I go in to town twice a week. Packages from Amazon that used to take one or two days now take more than a week. I wait to see that it's been identified as delivered before I schedule a trip in town. I can't tell you the number of times the PO has delivered NO notice to my box that these items are in their possession. I've learned to write down the tracking numbers and go up to the window.

As for UPS--the UPS guy drops whatever package it is over the gate at the end of my drive. The UPS site claims the delivery was made to my PORCH. Well, if it was delivered to my porch, then it grew legs and feet and danced an Olympic swimming pool's distance to the end of the driveway.

Fedex has been great. They deliver to my door. They even ring the door bell to let me know a stranger has braved the wilds of the desert.

[Dabbadooey]

Alta...wonder who put a rock on top of the box?

[Vintage VFer]

Originally Posted by Dabbadooey

Alta...wonder who put a rock on top of the box?

I have no idea.

[violingal3]

That is just a terrible story!!!

With as much Amazon/Mary shopping I've done lately, I've been pretty lucky. My MIL had ordered something mid-November from Amazon and she received a shipping notice back then, but still no package to date. It's probably out in a field somewhere with a rock on top. LOL

[bee]

I live rurally, too, and have had similar non-delivery, though nothing that bad! Just frustrating, but the thing that's scary our way lately is so much mail theft! Every day there's a report of either lost mail or found dumped mail. They have even taken too breaking into those locked mailboxes. Many people are getting post office boxes, and fortunately our little post office will provide you with an address that does not look like a PO box.

Good luck with future deliveries!

[Vintage VFer]

Originally Posted by bee

I live rurally, too, and have had similar non-delivery, though nothing that bad! Just frustrating, but the thing that's scary our way lately is so much mail theft! Every day there's a report of either lost mail or found dumped mail. They have even taken too breaking into those locked mailboxes. Many people are getting post office boxes, and fortunately our little post office will provide you with an address that does not look like a PO box.

We've had the boxes broken in to as well. One time, some thieves used a tractor or something and demolished the whole bank of mailboxes. It was mostly gone when we got there.