We've been fulltiming for four years now, and until this year have never had a problem with our mail not getting to us. However, in the past three months we've had three batches wander astray. In one case it was sent to a branch in a different town, and the employee I talked to just happened to have seen it. The second batch took ten days. The current batch has been on the road 12 working days, not counting Sundays, holidays or the day it was mailed, and is still missing in action. I could tell from the postmarks that the first two batches were mailed as scheduled. The three batches in question went to three different states, so it's not a localized problem.

My question: am I just having a bad stretch of luck, or is service deteriorating this much?? How many days do you allow for mail to catch up with you when you're traveling?

Roger S.

Are you using a mail forwarding service such as Escapees? We have had our mail forwarded by the SKP service for 13 years with NO lost mail or unusual delay.

Jim

We had instances of several batches of mial that went astray in southern AZ last winter. AJ was the worst.

We requested our mail service send everything with delivery confirmation and stuff seemed to work a bit better.

WOW right up my alley since I will have 35 years in the 27th of this month.

I will list a few things that have happened in the last few months and let you deceide.

1. Rate increase 12 May
2. Stamp machines removed from all offices that do not have an APC machine (Automated Postal Machine)
3. All window operations have at least half of their terminals removed = 6 window slots but only 3 terminals for us to work at.
4. Mail volumn down as much as 20 percent in most offices.
5. Standard mail way, way down and FOLKS this junk mail is where the PO made money. Not from your 42 cent stamp.
6. Gas prices soar. Every penny it goes up it cost the PO 8 Million dollars. We have a lot of trucks, cars, etc.
7. 20% of all employees in the PO never touch a letter or talk or deal with a customers. We are way way way to top heavy with Supervisors/Managers.
8. NOW WE HAVE AN EO offer to ALL employees. They want to try and get rid of 40,000 employees ASAP. Their is no money - just a chance to leave early with a penalty but at least be gone.
9. Boy I could go on and on. Less work does not mean better service in the PO. Why? Honestly only 1 in 4 is at best a average type worker. Most are poorly educated and feel that once they got this government job they DONT have to work. The 1 out of 4 good worker is piled on by management while the other 3 pretty much stand around. They did when we had mail and they stand around when we dont have mail, you get the idea.
I have already worked the window BY MYSelf for hours at a time when just 5 months ago we HAD to have 4 on the window from 3 to 5PM.

We are truely a broken agency. We quit being a service in the late 70's and became budget and bonus driven (management pay). They have been trying for 30 years to put a round peg in a square hole. We were a great service company years ago but now we are a horrible business model for all to see.

I had the same problem a few years ago. I use a UPS Store for my mail and they were forwarding the mail thru the PO. Within 6 months the PO lost 3 forwardings and they have never shown up. One was to an address 70 miles away. We had them switch to forwarding by UPS. Haven't lost one yet.

Our mail is forwarded via Escapees Mail Service. Most of the time it arrives in 3 days -- sometimes 2 and sometimes 4 -- this year no different than previous.

After several bad experiences with the USPS, ALL of our mail is forwarded via FedEX ground. Rates are very competitive and we have never had a problem with FedEX.

Safe Travels...

quote:

Originally posted by jblscooper:
Are you using a mail forwarding service such as Escapees? We have had our mail forwarded by the SKP service for 13 years with NO lost mail or unusual delay.

I don't care what mail forwarding service you use, short of being mis-labeled at the mail service, once it leaves their hands and gets into USPS's hands, they (the mail forwarding service) has no control over what happens to that package.

In the 10 years that we've been using a mail forwarding service, we've only had one package go astray. While it was properly addressed by the mail forwarder, the USPS misdirected it to a different town entirely.

Unfortunately, the people at that post office apparently didn't see that the package had been sent to the wrong town and just put it aside waiting for it to be picked up. Once the 30 days was up (the maximum time a General Delivery package will be held by a post office), the package was put back in the mail and was finally sent to the correct town...where we had left a forwarding request because we were long gone. Fortunately, after more than a month, the package did finally catch up with us.

Now, we have had a couple of post offices send back the general delivery mail because "they didn't know us." However, our mail usually gets to us by the 2nd or 3rd day after having been mailed. Occasionally, it will take longer (particularly around Christmas), but that's unusual.

Sign up for paperless bills, bank accounts statement paperless, ect. Direct deposits on income.

Or get a mail forward service where you can read mail on line. No lost mail that way.

I never receive any mail for 5 months when traveling. My friends do put all my mail in a bag while I am gone. I have gotten that down to about 1/2 a paper grocery bag now. When I first started over 8 years ago it was two full bags when I got back.

Biggest amount now is magazines. And I am not going to renew them or I am able to now get them on the internet.

In the last 7 months the USPS has lost one package of mail and missent 2 others. Escapees are doing their job but the Post Office isn't,so I am now going to have it sent via UPS at least I can track it!

Of course the one package of mail was sent around Christmas and had a large check in it but hasn't been seen since.So I figured one time ok, but not the other 2 times!!

My mail is all sent by USPS, prioity mail, flat rate, all that you can stuff in the envelope, by the person who does my mail. Good luck in the past three years, So far!

We do not fulltime but are in the same location for 6 months out of the year. We use USPS premium mail service, which we pay dearly. This year has been horrible. They are to mail on Wed and we receive on Fri but we are lucky if we receive by Tuesday of the next week. We have called our post office and the same song and dance is givien. Monday of this week (7/14) we called the supervisor and told her what was happening. She has put a green sticker on ours where we can track the mailing process. I call every Wed and get the deliverly confirmation # and go from there. I do not expect any problems now. However in the past, it has been "oh forgot" to mail on Wed to mail carrier is on vacation and didn't get done." Well we paid $368 for 6 months to get our mail once a week and so far (since 1st of March) it has come 2 weeks on Fridays and then 2/3 weeks on Tuesdays - 4 days late!!! Most of my bill paying is done on either autopay or online but some things are quarterly or whatever and I need a bill for them. If we are gone 6 months next year we will not use USPS - just not worth the price when they cannot get it together!!