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I recently ordered canvas print from a web site and was scheduled to be delivered Saturday. I live in an apartment complex with a central location mail box. I checked the status of my package Saturday morning to find out there was a delivery exception.

So I called the post office and they said that I wasn't home and the post man felt like they couldn't leave the package out. I went outside to check my door to see if they left a notice there, but it wasn't. Then I walked to the mail box to find a "Sorry We Missed You" note in my box. I knew the lazy ass mailman didn't want to drive up to my apartment and walk up some stairs to deliver my package.

I had the post office reschedule the delivery for Monday with special instructions to leave it at the door if I'm not there. NOTHING! So I called again last night and filed a complaint with the office and they said they would have it sent to me today. NOTHING!

I guess I have to take off work tomorrow morning and ride up to the post office and pick it up myself. I could totally understand if I wasn't at my apartment Saturday and it would be easier for me to just come pick it up. I'm pissed because they didn't even try and now refuse to deliver my package.

Do I have any other options than filing another complaint? I'm sure nothing will come of it, but this person should be punished at his work for not doing his job. I can't stand when lazy ass people try to get away with this kind of stuff.

TLDR..Ordered package and mailman to lazy to deliver after multiple complaints.

 

[Best Nintendo Fan Ever]

I get this all the time and I work from home! They don't ring the door bell or knock. They literally just leave the crappy note and I have to then go to the post office to pick it up.

 

[Bit-Bit]

I'm with you OP, I fuckin despise the United States Postal Service.

Ever since Amazon started using them, it's been nothing but problems.

It's pretty much a guarantee now that if there's a Sunday delivery, then the package will be "lost".

And when I try to contact them, the phone would ring and ring forever. Then when I finally get someone on the line, they would be rude and shit like I ruined their day by calling them.

Fuck the USPS.

 

[Mengetsu]

I have two friends who work at the post office and they tell me a lot of people who get hired end up hating the job and want to quit but it pays well so they don't. Fustrated working a job they hate will do that to a person.

 

[mclem]

I can vouch that this is in no way unique to the USPS. Various parcel services in the UK have been similarly guilty.

 

[titiklabingapat]

Still better than UPS and Fedex.

 

[Qasiel]

It's happened to me a couple of times.

I work shifts so sometimes I'm home when packages can be delivered and once at my old place I heard the postman drop some letters through the door. I went to get them and saw one of those "Sorry you weren't in" cards, so I opened the door and called to the guy as he was leaving. He didn't even bother getting the relatively small (a couple of PS3 games from Amazon) package from his van to deliver, just thought he'd be lazy and drop a note in without even knocking.

 

[dity]

This is basically every delivery from AusPost and DHL that needs a signature from me. It boggles my mind.

 

[lastplayed]

Happens here in NZ. Some courier companies will happily leave parcels by my back door, but NZ Post don't seem to want to go any further than my letter box. I swear sometimes they've left me a card even when I was home, I didn't hear any knocking.

 

[riotous]

USPS consistently marks packages as delivered, then doesn't deliver them until the next day.

Trying to complain is useless; I just avoid them as often as possible and each time they mess with me for an amazon delivery I send amazon a complaint telling them not to use USPS.

 

[Veritigo_X]

USPS was known for this when I was a kid. You pretty much had to be waiting outside to get a package because they'd just wait at the end of the driveway for someone to come get the package and leave if no one showed up within 20 seconds. My parents filed so many complaints but they never changed their routine.

 

[Jacksinthe]

I had several packages were "delivered" in paper only. Only to receive them days later.

That and "we missed you" are tactics to pad delivery statistics.

Service is garbage.

 

[ElTorro]

Happens here in Germany too, especially with the cheaper delivery services.

Delivery guy just seems to be an underpaid, shitty job all around the world. If you aren't paying people much and put them on a tight delivery schedule at the same time, they just won't be motivate enough to bring you your latest gadget on time.

 

[Jeremy]

Yeah, I hate this. I used to blame people I lived with

("Why didn't you answer the door?!"

"They didn't knock!"

"Whatever.")

but... I realized I was wrong. I've seen them just drop the note without trying to deliver. I'm not mad at them though, I think the job is shitty. I have to go by the post office every day for work and me and every USPS employee look like we'd rather be dead than doing what we're doing.

 

[Replicant]

Happens here in Australia too. Shitty company.

 

[Cyrillus]

It's pretty much a guarantee now that if there's a Sunday delivery, then the package will be "lost".

I've had this happen twice now with Subscribe and Save deliveries. My last 2 have just not shown up. The first time it happened I reported it and they sent a replacement during the next week which arrived fine, but the second time it happened they refused to replace the shipment.

The last time I was sitting in my apartment (not within earshot to hear a knock on the front door unfortunately). I got a text on my phone saying it was "delivered", walked right out to the front door and nothing was there. I'd almost suspect my drug-dealing neighbor or one of his "guests" of stealing them, but none of my other deliveries go missing.

I'm to the point where I'm debating ordering an IP camera to connect to the door's peep hole and see what's up. Infuriating.

 

[Spacebar]

USPS consistently marks packages as delivered, then doesn't deliver them until the next day.

Trying to complain is useless; I just avoid them as often as possible and each time they mess with me for an amazon delivery I send amazon a complaint telling them not to use USPS.

This is what I figured. I normally ship to my work office, but since I knew this was going to be a big package I figured I would ship it to my apartment so I wouldn't have to worry about trying to fit it in my car (big 45x45 canvas) getting it home.

My UPS guy at work is on point and knows me well since I order from amazon a lot. Never had to many issues with FedEx either. Laser ship has been garbage sometimes, but they at least came to my door and tried to deliver.

 

[reckless]

USPS, UPS, Fedex it doesn't matter, i seriously can't remember the last time someone actually knocked on my door when delivering a package. So i either get a missed delivery notice or expensive stuff left outside.

 

[CloudyTuba]

On my street every mailbox is right on the street so the mailperson is lazy and never wants to get up from her seat. Repeatedly for a while I'd get the "sorry we missed you" even when I was home.

Then one day just a couple months back I caught the truck getting close and I knew I had a package out for delivery. I took my time going out there, curious if I could catch her in the act. I did.

She didn't notice me and I walked right up to her while she was writing the "sorry" note. She got flustered and stuttered around some nonsense a bit and gave me my package. Clearly a little embarrassed.
Since then I havent had trouble but we'll see.

My own personal ranking for the local performance of carriers is UPS>Ontrac>Fedex>USPS. I've noticed that it varies wildly by area, though. Of course it comes down to the employees, and yours may not be the same ones servicing my area.

UPS is consistently great and I always get my package early in the morning. Ontrac promises by 8pm and ends up delivering at 10pm, but I always get it. Fedex has lost a few packages and had a few delays. USPS is blatantly lazy and has lost or misdelivered many packages.

 

[Goldenroad]

I'm kind of glad to hear it's not just Canada Post.

 

[Bjomesphat]

I live in an apartment complex. USPS and UPS go building to building and deliver straight to your door. FedEx drops at the leasing office. No complaints from any service where I live.

 

[Sir Abacus]

I have a similar problem, OP.

As of two minutes ago, the post office is still positive they'll deliver my package yesterday. It's headed to Lexington but left Columbus at 9pm last night so I'm not entirely hopeful unless there's a wormhole. But then I really don't want to break causality just so that my package can arrive at the stated time.

 

[SatoAilDarko]

Threads lime these make me glad all my packages are just left in front of the door to my house.

When I lived in an apartment for a bit the few times I ordered something it was always a bitch to get it from UPS or FedEx.

 

[Cipherr]

Still better than UPS and Fedex.

No, its not. Not in this particular issue. USPS treats townhouse/apartment complexes with clustered mail boxes as a free pass for deliveries. They pretty much universally don't even attempt to go to the house and deliver. It's an instant note in your mailbox about them missing you, like 100% of the time. As if the person would be standing outside at the fucking box instead of inside their homes.


I have seen them do this in my hometown, and in STL and Chicago too. Same behaviour. UPS, FedEX and DHL aren't perfect either, but on occasion they will attempt the delivery because they don't have a USPS key to your clustered mailbox the way USPS does. This by default makes UPS/FedEx better than USPS on this front.

They just don't try, and nothing OP does will change that. They will ignore the complaint he files. The crazy thing is delivery of larger items that are supposed to be taken to your door costs MORE than normal letters from USPS, but they literally steal from customers by not performing the service and making the recipient drive to their nearest office to get the packages. Free money for them.

We solved the issue inadvertently when we bought a house, lol. Now theres no problems.

 

[Dicer]

Dealing with this right now...says it was delivered but it hasn't been.

 

[Prinz Eugn]

I'm with you OP, I fuckin despise the United States Postal Service.

Ever since Amazon started using them, it's been nothing but problems.

It's pretty much a guarantee now that if there's a Sunday delivery, then the package will be "lost".

And when I try to contact them, the phone would ring and ring forever. Then when I finally get someone on the line, they would be rude and shit like I ruined their day by calling them.

Fuck the USPS.

This happened to me, but in reverse- I got packages for two separate people because the Sunday person for some reason mixed up the street (but same number), and then apparently didn't think it was suspicious that my address isn't several apartments.

And then the regular mailman refused to take the damn things for redelivery. You park the truck 30 ft away from my door, ass.

 

[Bloodrage]

Happens to me all the time. Lazy motherfuckers don't even knock and pull this shit. What's even worse is having to go down to the post office to explain to them how dumb they are.

 

[DoomGyver]

I had to return an amazon order today, usps told me it would be 10.80 to return. Then she measured the box and said even though the package weighs less than 2 lbs it would be 38.10 to ship.

Get fucked.

So I emailed the third party seller and politely asked if they would cover shipping since the item was defective. They sent me a UPS shipping label in less than an hour.

FEDEX also pulled the "Sorry we missed you" bull a month ago. It took them an extra week to deliver my package because they had put it on the wrong truck. (wrong city)

 

[Shadow Broker]

You can always call the inspector general.

For those saying they scanned it delivered but don't till the next they.

They're doing it wrong. For whatever reason they don't deliver they HAVE to scan it attempted and a 3849 to stop the clock on the package. But them scanning it delivered and not delivering it till the next day is mind boggling to me.

Complaining to the supervisors will only get you so far because the supervisors can only do so much because of the union.

It takes an act of Congress to properly write up a postal employee because of the union.



Edit: also losing your shit and being rude will get you no where fast and you'll become someone they label as crazy and tune you out as soon as they realize your address.

 

[Gravidee]

It's funny. Something similar happened to me today with Canada Post. There were three people in the house and none of us heard anyone at the door. By the time I checked the delivery status online, it said that an attempted delivery was made about half an hour ago. I think the post guy was just being a lazy ass and couldn't be bothered to ring the doorbell or wait for anyone.

 

[Dedication Through Light]

I only ever have to sign when its an EMS (international) package from them, otherwise all my amazon and other stuff they just leave it there.

I just dont like their tracking as I tried to in the past time it so I could be home when a package makes it but they often dont update the sorting outfor delivery and the steps before until litrally an hour before they deliver

Id prefer if the notices were left on the door and not the mailbox.

 

[GentlemanCrow]

Are there any postal workers/friends of such on here? How is it from the inside? I've been on the (not) receiving end of this relationship but I don't think I've ever heard the other side.

 

[espher]

Happens with Canada Post all the time, esp. now that community mailboxes are more and more common.

Come hang out in the Canadian Deals and Discussion thread on gaming side - that's all the thread is about now w/ the dollar in the toilet.

 

[CloudyTuba]

Are there any postal workers/friends of such on here? How is it from the inside? I've been on the (not) receiving end of this relationship but I don't think I've ever heard the other side.

My uncle was a postal worker and I never heard stories about it, all he said was that there was a stupid amount of paperwork involved in a variety of processes and that you should especially avoid hitting a USPS truck with your car because the US government will bury both you and the truck driver under their most immense stack of paperwork.

So there's your not-really-relevant story from someone who knew a PO worker.

 

[Shadow Broker]

Are there any postal workers/friends of such on here? How is it from the inside? I've been on the (not) receiving end of this relationship but I don't think I've ever heard the other side.

It's funny whenever people think we're running late because we're being lazy or slow. The public has no idea how much a postal employee has to do before they even deliver the mail.
Then we have to deliver the mail. The route I sub on has just over 700 addresses on it.

I'm not making excuses for the employees who aren't doing their job correctly but usually in my office we try to get everything done correctly and when we do miss a delivery we're sure to get it to that person the next day.

Also, all postal employees are on the clock. We have to be back by 1630 to meet the truck for out going mail. So we don't have time to wait until someone decides to answer a door. Whenever I pull up I honk my h9rn twice for anything needing a signature or just leave anything that doesn't by the front door or desk or by the garage.


Edit: it's a very stressful job.

 

[Chariot]

UPS used to pull that on me, but pne amgry call was enough and the UPS guy now always rings the bell like a good boy.

 

[DietRob]

I feel really lucky my USPS lady is awesome.

 

[dietdracula]

Are there any postal workers/friends of such on here? How is it from the inside? I've been on the (not) receiving end of this relationship but I don't think I've ever heard the other side.

I worked in a USPS data entry position for about seven years, and when I got laid off from there I worked in an actual postal station for about six months. The pay was great, but the job was a fucking shit show. Everything was horribly mismanaged, we were heavily understaffed so I was working 10 hour days on the regular. When we started doing the Amazon Sunday delivery service, our lack of staffing meant that some of us weren't getting days off for 2-3 weeks, and management refused to do anything about it despite complaints. Of course, those of us complaining were not career employees, so they didn't give a shit about us. The hours and physical stress from working in that building are something led to some serious emotional problems that I'm just now getting a hold on.

Then if certain packages don't scan because of a bad barcode or a mangled, handwritten address, that adds another layer of how things could get lost. Admittedly there is a bit of guesswork involved when it comes down to that, but the amount of data you can figure out from a zip code goes a long way. That doesn't explain much about how we'd end up with bags of parcels that should have been sent to other states. As for letter mail, I hand corrected a lot of mail and sorted it out for refiling each day. With that knowledge I can definitely tell you how easy it is for letter mail to go missing.

As for packages going lost, I don't know how the workflow is at most buildings, but when packages come in to be sorted / dispersed to carriers for the day, we would usually end up scanning them multiple times and it was a very redundant process. It's not surprising that parcels get lost at the rate they do. My building was fairly small so we didn't have a lot of things go missing, but it did happen.

The whole thing about people going "postal" has some truth in it. When I quit that job I hated myself and everything around me and I wanted to die. The USPS is a horrible organization to work for. It requires a very specific kind of personality to work there and enjoy it.

 

[The_Kid]

Yeah this happens to me all the time, but honestly I'm a little less sour on it after seeing what my boyfriend and friends went through.

The BF worked there for about a year when he needed money, hated it (a day wouldn't go by where he wouldn't complain about how much it sucked, how much customers hated him). They apparently throw new people into the thick of it without much training, giving them the worst routes, etc. A lot of the time he was delivering until about 6 or 7 and speeding around all the neighborhoods because there was just so much to deliver and not enough time. He also developed a horrible back problem that took months of treatment to fix because the dumb vehicles are the most rigid and stiff things imaginable.

It's a sucky job and most of the people who work there probably with they would be doing anything else in the world. From what I understand it isn't a laziness issue as much as it is a "I don't have enough time and I need to get to the next stop" issue.

 

[Spiritreaver]

Yup, USPS does it here too in Edmond. I have some prescriptions delivered and often the woman who delivers my mail does not properly knock. Her knocks were basically a very light tapping on the door. So quiet I wouldn't be able to hear it unless I was in the main room. I've missed several packages cause of this and rescheduling deliveries with USPS is impossible.

I've also had USPS get TWO packages stuck in my apartment complex's mailbox. Someone stuffed boxes too big for the package box. (You could get them in but can not get them out because the fit so snug). I had to rip the boxes apart to get them out.

I hate USPS and hate that Amazon uses them almost exclusively for most things.

 

[Azure Dream]

I've actually had pretty good luck with the USPS, other than the extra day it takes to make a 20 minute trip for delivery the following day.

UPS though, now that is a garbage company. And I say this having had people I know and like working for it.

As of two minutes ago, the post office is still positive they'll deliver my package yesterday. It's headed to Lexington but left Columbus at 9pm last night so I'm not entirely hopeful unless there's a wormhole. But then I really don't want to break causality just so that my package can arrive at the stated time.

 

[SwiftDeath]

Usually I'm pretty okay with the USPS as they tend to be fairly consistent in my dealings with them BUT I sold something on ebay for like $135 a couple weeks back, shipped it Priority and this is the tracking I got for it

I was completely convinced USPS had simply lost my package until it magically appeared delivered. The ironic thing is this is a lucky experience all in all.

 

[Coins]

I'm a mailman. I won't knock if you have a storm door and the actual door open. I've had numerous dogs jump through glass to come at me. I realize you're in an apartment and that probably doesn't apply, but there are numerous reasons why a carrier won't knock.

 

[FStop7]

My experience has been -

FedEx - consistently good
USPS - consistently good
UPS - most of the time they're good
Ontrac - a living hellscape straight out of Event Horizon

 

[dhlt25]

happen to me all the time, especially with packages heavier than 5 lbs since I live on a third floor walk up apartment. At least the post office is only 10 mins drive from my place but it's still very annoying

 

[akira28]

they always deliver my stuff. dunno whats wrong with you guys. *shrug*

 

[adamsappel]

My mail carrier is great. Knocks on my door even while my dog is going nuts barking, getting out of her truck to put letters in my mailbox that my neighbor parks in front of. I even live in one of those neighborhoods where mail gets delivered early. I sometimes get mail before noon.

 

[TheJLC]

You're lucky. USPS leaves the packages at the door and someone always steals them. UPS and FedEx on the other hand leave a note and retry even when there is no signature required. USPS doesn't even throw them over the fence or put it somewhere closer to the door, they just leave it at the first door step and leave. Talked to the mailman and he just told me that he isn't responsible for the packages getting stolen, that's a 'neighborhood' problem.

 

[Jeff Vader]

It really does seem like with the USPS either your area has good workers or people who don't give a damn. In my case it's the former, they do a good job and they seem happy enough with the work they do, same with FedEx. UPS on the other hand can go to hell.

 

[ZeroX03]

I stopped trying to deal with delivery services at home. I just get them delivered to my work which is a business address. Much more reliable, they don't fuck around with businesses.