[mkarr]

As a hopeful note of optimism: I recently sent a large, expensive package (worth around $1500) cross-country via USPS. The package was sent out mid-December. According to the tracking it made it all the way to the destination Post Office. After that...nothing. It just never progressed. I filed both a mail search requests, and an insurance claim. I received nothing but radio silence on those as well. Fast forward to about a week ago when the package just shows up on my doorstep without notice. Hopefully byuu's package eventually does show up.

[eco]

I was hoping USPS had improved. Something similar happened to me but with no resolution. About 12 years ago I returned a phone I bought on eBay that arrived non-functioning. The tracking page just stopped updating after it reached the destination post office. I went to the post office I sent it from asking for help. They told me I had to go to the post office for my return address. I thought it was odd but I did that and was told they had no idea why the other post office would send me there so they referred me back. Got a different employee and they just shrugged and said they didn't know what do it. And that was the end of it.

Perhaps I could have gotten to the bottom of it if I was willing to spend a few more afternoons dealing with it but the phone really wasn't worth that much of my time. I've never sent something by USPS since then.

Occasionally I receive packages by USPS and dread it every time. Form 3849, even if you can somehow fill it out correctly (good luck!), always just results in them holding the package at the post office as I wait and wait for them to redeliver it. You never know if it's going to be at the post office that day for pickup or if today is the day they actually redeliver it so you're left wondering if you are going to spend 45 minutes in line at the post office for nothing or not.

I'll show up there, the person at the desk spends 10 minutes finding my package, apologizes, and hands it over. This last time they said, "Sorry, the carriers are kind of lazy".

I ordered a package on Ali Express and after 2 months of not seeing it, I filed a dispute, the Chinese seller was apologetic and offered to refund my money if it didn't arrive in the next 10 days. I was in no rush so I agreed to it. Ali Express's terrible interface led me to accepting the dispute as resolved and you can't reopen it so I just assumed I was out $30 or whatever the items cost. Weeks later I went with my wife to pick up a package at the post office and they brought an extra package to the counter (along with the usual "sorry"). It was my Ali Express items which USPS had never tried to deliver. If not for Ali Express' terrible interface I would have unintentionally taken advantage of some poor Chinese seller because USPS didn't do the one thing they are supposed to do, deliver the mail.

[abandonliberty]

USPS is quite remarkable given their costs. Based on the volume of mail handled there are many horror stories, but their actual error rates are very good.

It does sound like you're in a particularly bad location. If you want better you'll have to pay more.

Shipping within the US is awesome. Living in any other country is very enlightening.

https://about.usps.com/what-we-are-doing/service-performance...

[eco]

I would hope a "particularly bad location" wouldn't encompass the entire Salt Lake metro area (+1M pop) but my experience has been the same throughout the many places I've lived in the valley. You'd think a bad location would be isolated to a particular post office. By the stats on this page I'm in one of the better locations though (SLC).

I agree shipping in the US is awesome. I'm still amazed how well it works. USPS delivers the vast majority of packages I get through them without issue so perhaps they are a lot better than other countries in that respect. I guess my issue with them is more about their handling of exceptional situations. They mostly do their job fine but if something goes wrong it feels like it's the first time USPS has ever seen a package delivery problem. Perhaps UPS and FedEx are just as bad. I've just never had them lose a package so I haven't had to experience it.

I do, however, often feel like USPS costs me more than UPS and FedEx just because I have to spend time each day throwing 95% of what I get from them in the recycle bin (and that's after I've opted out of everything I can).

[niij]

What you're throwing in the recycle bin is what's called "bulk mail" and its what helps keep postal rates low for first class parcels.

[ocdtrekkie]

And you can help the Postal Service out in keeping prices low even further: Open that bulk mail, grab the "business reply" envelope... AND MAIL IT BACK! Costs you nothing but a few moments of your time, irritates the spammer slightly, and costs them a little money, which goes to support the Postal Service! Win, win, win.

[eco]

Not if you ask USPS. They aren't supposed to cross-subsidize using services they have a monopoly on (first class and standard mail which includes bulk advertising). Awhile back UPS, FedEx, and others asked the Postal Regulatory Commission to look into whether or not they are doing that. I'm not sure if anything ever came of it.

[derekp7]

It doesn't directly subsides it, however it keeps the overall volume up. It costs them about the same to deliver 1 letter to you as it does 5. It also costs them even if they deliver nothing to you. So in that regard, the bulk mail does help out.

[xahrepap]

I live at the north end if Utah county: zero problems. I'm not the least bit nervous about packages not making it.

However when I lived in South Jordan (southern salt lake county) they would put mail from someone a street over in our box or vise versa. Maybe once a month or more. I wonder how many things we lost or never got because of that.

[nullc]

> I do, however, often feel like USPS costs me more than UPS and FedEx just because I have to spend time each day throwing 95% of what I get from them in the recycle bin (and that's after I've opted out of everything I can).

I would pay to have the postal service eliminate all presorted/bulk rate messages.

I have multiple times lost important mail (or rescued it at the last moment from the trash) because it got mixed in with the floods of garbage that they deliver.

More than anything else I believe the deluge of crap makes the postal service uninteresting wherever it can be avoided, it's worse than the email spam situation because we have worse tools for dealing with it.

[devicenull]

> I do, however, often feel like USPS costs me more than UPS and FedEx just because I have to spend time each day throwing 95% of what I get from them in the recycle bin (and that's after I've opted out of everything I can).

I've been using PaperKarma for awhile, which has significantly reduced the amount of junk mail I get. It's been pretty effective, we're down to only a couple pieces of junk mail per day (most of which is stuff for previous residents that I've never seen before)

[eco]

I tried it. I didn't notice any appreciable decrease unfortunately but I loved the idea.

[hysan]

> Living in any other country is very enlightening.

I lived in Japan for several years and found the postal service there to be fantastic compared to what I experienced with USPS. Perhaps if I lived in yet another country this would be different?

[qume]

I have lived in UK, Italy, New Zealand, USA and Mexico. USPS is the only one which i've had a problem with, and I've had multiple, including one which is slightly more significant in terms of value than the OP. I spent months trying to track the 6 large boxes down (one of which turned up - all on one shipment), and only got frustrated by some of the... interesting... people who work there.

[Animats]

I have two missing packages in USPS right now, both from China. One is a laptop power supply, which tracking shows as delivered, although it didn't show up. The second is some surface mount soldering practice boards, which made it to "out for delivery" near me back in early January. Then somehow the packet went to Los Angeles, where it's stuck with no delivery date.

This is all cheap stuff from eBay and Amazon, and I can get refunds. But it's annoying that each item made it all the way from China to Silicon Valley, then delivery failed in the last few miles.

[cr0sh]

Be patient - it might just arrive!

I ordered a bunch of stuff via Ali Express back in mid-December. Most of the items arrived "fairly quickly" (with 2-3 weeks). A couple of the items didn't show up until last week! Fortunately, they weren't anything expensive (I had already "written it off".

I've had a similar experience with Amazon from a Chinese supplier. One time, I was sent something, could see it tracked and supposedly went "to my mailbox" - but nothing. I ended up contacting the post office, they confirmed "yep - that's what happened" - but nothing about helping me find the package.

I also sent a note to the seller saying I hadn't received the item, but that it seemed like it shipped all the way. They ended up apologizing, and sending the item again to me!

A couple of days later, the first item was finally delivered by the post office - no explanation given. I let the seller know this, and asked about the other item. They told me not to worry about it, and to keep it!

So - two for the price of one, I guess...

[voltagex_]

I swear we need to crowdsource data about AliExpress delivery times. I'm going to make a note of my next packages, but the last few got to me via Cambodia and Tonga of all places.

I've never had an AliExpress package take less than a month to get to me in Australia, BangGood and Gearbest are slightly faster for some reason.

[huehehue]

USPS is usually fantastic but, when they fail, they fail very bureaucratically.

Ordered a gift with rush shipping on Dec. 20th. Arrives at the local post office Dec. 22nd, marked undeliverable as addressed the next day.

I call them up and say, "Hey, I typed in 123 Sprig Street, but I meant 123 Spring Street. Can I just drive over and get the package?".

"No."

An employee told me all I could do was update my address with the shipper, wait for them to fail 2 more delivery attempts, have them return the package at their leisure, and have the shipper resend. So I checked the shipping status every day and, sure enough, they tried redelivering to the same bogus address twice. Predictable, at least. Got the package last week.

[dtparr]

So, the USPS has a pretty strict set of rules for ensuring that mail is only delivered to the address it was mailed to, and it's all based on what's on the package.

One interesting bit: if you mail something to an address that is valid, defined overly simplistically as "zip matches city/state, street exists, street number exists within the valid numerical range for that street regardless of whether there's actually a box there", it doesn't matter what the name is on it, it will go to that address. Even if their own records show no one by that name has received mail there and that someone by that name lives across the street.

On one hand, it's frustrating from a common sense type issue like yours. On the other, it at least blocks one class of social engineering type issues and lets the shipper's intent be fully represented by the package itself (even if it's wrong).

Out of curiosity, was the actual "Sprig" street a real street name or not? I can't remember at what point the name comes into play with a bad address.

[huehehue]

"Sprig" was not a real street name; it was a bad address.

[tzs]

I wonder what would have happened if you had have filled out and submitted a change of address form saying that you moved from "123 Sprig Street" to "123 Spring Street"?

[ryan-c]

They don't forward packages for change of address.

[jf]

I had a similar experience: I ordered a table from Germany on December 3rd, 2016 which shipped December 14th, 2016 and didn't arrive until ... yesterday, February 13th, 2017

I too hope that byuu's package shows up eventually!

[ssully]

I am in this exact scenario right now. The last entry on my tracking was my package arriving at my USPS facility 14 days ago and nothing has happened since. I just don't understand how something like this happens.

[teslabox]

I had a package 'fall off the truck' a few scans after it entered the USPS system. A month later it scanned at a Chicago sorting center, and was delivered a few days later.

Another recent package was said to have been delivered, but wasn't actually in my mailbox until the following day. Maybe my neighbor redelivered it for me.

[rtkwe]

For the longest time our local carriers would deliver to 2330 Someplace Street instead of our address at 2030 Someplace Street. Luckily the neighbor was honest though it was really hard when they delivered my 55lb office chair in a box too big to fit in my car, but that was FedEx of all people.