[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.