# USPS at it's finest.....NOT!!!!!



## Robert Taylor (Aug 20, 2010)

hard to believe they would even deliver an envelope like this. seems to me when the machine devoures an envelope that a human would have to pick up the pieces. oh well see for yourself........


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## mredburn (Aug 20, 2010)

I have received 2 or 3 pieces like that.  One they put the pieces in a bag and delivered that. I was thankful that they delivered what the did.  It allowed me to contact the sender and let them know it arrived damaged. 2 of the 3 I received were packages that the contents were long gone. If they hadnt delivered the torn up package i would not have known what happened to them at all.


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## Russianwolf (Aug 20, 2010)

Then their's the package I received yesterday....


Nice mess inside. A paint pen had exploded and two containers of glass had broken.......

This was UPS.


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## Robert Taylor (Aug 20, 2010)

the flap piece at the top of the picture is the back only. it contains a nice wide strip of tape to make sure it stayed sealed but was no match for the usps. my favorite though is the sticker the local po put on it to say. "whoa we didn't do it" but no one looks back to where it was damaged. bad employees just don't care.


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## Robert Taylor (Aug 20, 2010)

Russianwolf said:


> Then their's the package I received yesterday....
> 
> 
> Nice mess inside. A paint pen had exploded and two containers of glass had broken.......
> ...



i think i don't feel so bad now. lol sorry 'bout your package. this post should be way more fun than some of the recent bickering.


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## GoodTurns (Aug 20, 2010)

I received an empty box from our friends at the USPS...end was completely sheared off and the 6 snakeskin blanks in it were gone.  Had the nice "oops" sticker....they usually do better!


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## tim self (Aug 20, 2010)

When I had received my MT1 from the supplier, the ENVELOPE (duh) was wrecked like that.  the dead center was laying loose in the mailbox so all was not lost!  I've been lucky so far.  One check I received was mangled like yours but bank still cashed the check!


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## workinforwood (Aug 20, 2010)

Regular envelopes are always the worst..you can not put anything but paper into them.  Not even a single refill can go in a regular envelope, because they put those through a machine with rollers that will smash into any type of object, ejecting it from the envelope.  Supposedly you can have a sticker put on the envelope that says hand stamp only on it and that stops the envelope from going through the machine, but I don't trust that.  Not making excuses for the post office either, I'm just saying that regular mail envelope damage can MOSTLY be avoided by simply not putting anything but letters or bills inside them.

I had a padded envelope with a few things I got from Johnny CNC and it was ripped open on one side, but somehow the envelope and the contents still made it here! We were lucky.


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## wolftat (Aug 20, 2010)

Russianwolf said:


> Then their's the package I received yesterday....
> 
> 
> Nice mess inside. A paint pen had exploded and two containers of glass had broken.......
> ...


 A friend on mine works there and tells me stories of the package kicking contests and what not.


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## Smitty37 (Aug 20, 2010)

*Ship USPS*



Russianwolf said:


> Then their's the package I received yesterday....
> 
> 
> Nice mess inside. A paint pen had exploded and two containers of glass had broken.......
> ...


 
I'm not sure you can ship that kind of thing USPS...they always ask if there are any liquids in the package....


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## Smitty37 (Aug 20, 2010)

*consolation*



bettyt44720 said:


> hard to believe they would even deliver an envelope like this. seems to me when the machine devoures an envelope that a human would have to pick up the pieces. oh well see for yourself........


 
I know it is little consolation but I have seen worse.  Got a package of kits back once that just about everything inside was crushed and the package had what looked to me like tire tracks on it.


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## witz1976 (Aug 20, 2010)

workinforwood said:


> Regular envelopes are always the worst..you can not put anything but paper into them.  Not even a single refill can go in a regular envelope, because they put those through a machine with rollers that will smash into any type of object, ejecting it from the envelope.  Supposedly you can have a sticker put on the envelope that says hand stamp only on it and that stops the envelope from going through the machine, but I don't trust that. ...



You can also simply write in a Sharpie " POSTMASTER: PLEASE HAND CANCEL ONLY"  That is another way you can avoid having it go through the shredder..err machines.


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## keithlong (Aug 20, 2010)

Been there had it done to me also. One envelope had a money order in it that got torn into shreads, then another one that made it here, but nothing inside it.


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## MrPukaShell (Aug 20, 2010)

I for one would not put anything BUT paper in an envelope.  All letter mail starts off going through rollers that knock off all of the large items on a belt that do get caught by employees.  Then they go through another set of rollers/cancelers to cancel the postage.  From there they go through another machine to put that little bar code on the letter, then off to another machine that sorts the mail to different hubs.  Once it gets to the hubs it is consolidated to the different city's, then down to the carrier routes.  These machines sort letters @ 30,000 to 60,00 pieces per hour depending on the make up of the mail.  The whole time mail is in the machine it is being pinched between rollers and belts.  Anything and I do mean anything that is odd shaped or has something inside of it is subject to jams which lead to shredded letters, missing contents and bad service.  Sometimes it gets salvaged of and sometimes not.  Not to mention that letter mail is transported on commercial airlines.  Ever watch those guys handle luggage?  

I will look on YouTube, I think there is a clip of the letter sorting machine.  Here is the link  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQfFXcp4H6I

Packages are a whole different subject.  Very little sorting by hand, all done on machines until they get to the local city.  I'll look for a clip


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## EBorraga (Aug 20, 2010)

Well, I figured this was the easiest way to send something. It had a set of Jr Gent II bushings in it. Once again I was wrong. Guess that's what I get for trying to RAK someone.


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## jbl1510 (Aug 21, 2010)

We DON'T use usps unless we absolutely have to. Several years ago my wife had to send several letters certified with return receipt. If my memory serves me correct only 1 out of 4 were returned with a signature. 1 was returned without a signature and the other 2 were not returned, when my wife went to the post office they did not apologize and would not refund the money that was spent to send them certified. Since then she had to send another letter, but she sent it insured for $100.00 and for some reason it was delivered.


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## barkisini (Aug 21, 2010)

"I'm not sure you can ship that kind of thing USPS...they always ask if there are any liquids in the package.... "



I was told the reason they ask about liquids is to determine whether the item can be sent via airline or if it needs to go "surface mail."

Until I heard that, I always said "no" to the liquids question, regardless...luckily, no "explosions" resulted, but now I simply tell them what's in the packet and let them decide how it should be sent.


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## Spats139 (Aug 21, 2010)

*Whew... I can breathe easy again!*

And, "no", I'm not talking about respiratory problems. 

I had just mailed my pen to my PITH partner about a day before this thread started , and then I had to wait anxiously for confirmation that it was received intact - it was! 

It was in a bubble wrap envelope with extra wrap inside, and I thought that was fine until I read the comments here. That was when I remembered a couple packages that I'd received with torn corners and such.  Anyway, at least I now know that it arrived safely, and I can again sleep soundly at night.


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## Scooley01 (Dec 18, 2010)

This is a package I got today (UPS).  No wonder he just left it without ringing the doorbell, I'd be embarrassed to deliver this too.

Luckily nothing inside was damaged.


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## Grizz (Dec 18, 2010)

I would imagine that doing 100's of thousands of mail a day (or more)  the percentage of mail damaged it probably pretty low.


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## Scooley01 (Dec 18, 2010)

Regardless of how low the overall percentage is, I bet it still matters to that small percentage that get their package/letter destroyed.  I can testify to the fear/anger you feel when you see a package damaged.


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## phillywood (Dec 18, 2010)

Bob, you know we have had threads similar to this before. If you stop and count the percentage of packages that do make it to their final destinations, the number would be pretty good. Now, I want to make this clear that i do not condone their mess up, but now we as Americans do mail a lot of stuff way more than we did 35 years ago when i arrived in US. I remember we had to wait about 30 or more days to get stuff form USA to my country if we were lucky and undamaged, so considering that these little mishaps are nothing.
Yes, I feel your pain,and there is no excuse for them for delivering that kind of letter, but at least it got to you and now you can have a closer to it.


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## jttheclockman (Dec 18, 2010)

Heck I just got a package from OKLAHOMAN Roy and it was sent through the good old post office and it too looked like it went through a war. Bent the refill and it was sticking out of the envelope. Roy doubled the envelope and all but still.

Roy just to let you know I got it and can save the contents. Thanks.


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## ctubbs (Dec 18, 2010)

I have been told by employees at both USPS and UPS to not put FRAGILE on a package.  That is a challenge to see just how much damage that can be done to that package.  I just wrap, stuff the box, mail it and pray.
Charels


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## dogcatcher (Dec 18, 2010)

Grizz said:


> I would imagine that doing 100's of thousands of mail a day (or more)  the percentage of mail damaged it probably pretty low.


Actually according to the accounting from of Price Waterhouse the successful rate is 99.9 percent. 

The first few posts about complaints, the torn envelope and the exploded package was the shippers fault.  Most mail is automated, it is very rarely handled by hand from the start to delivery.  Even packages are run through conveyor systems at mail processing centers.  The machines read the bar codes and nothing else.  You can write fragile or whatever on the package, the machine doesn't read it.  If the shipper packs ot right it gets there in one piece 99.9% of the time on time.  If the shipper packs it wrong, you have lessened the chance for a good delivery on time.  

As stated before letters can go through the machine at the rate of 60,000 piece per hour, if you stick thick odd shaped object the machine will destroy it.  The fault lies with the shipper.  If you pack in a bubble pack, as in legal size, it has a better chance.  

If you want to ship it in an envelope, you need to send it registered mail.  This way the piece of mail will be handled by a person all the way through the system, no machines to tear it up, but the cost will be about 10 times as much.   

Packages are moved from one town to the next in large hampers, if your poorly packed package is the first one in the hamper, then you better have it packed correctly.  Or the next package might be a 60 pound auto part that falls on top of it.  It is the shippers responsibility to know how to package what the want to send.  If your package is ruined, most likely it was the shippers fault.  Again if you want the package to be handled by a person instead of a machine send it registered mail, and pay about 10 times as much.

I mail about 500 packages a year, I only had one problem this last year.  The customer transposed numbers in his Zip Code, and I wrote it as he supplied it.  It took an extra 3 days to go from Texas to Georgia to the correct location of Kansas.  Whose mistake was it?  Mine, I should have checked the Zip, in fact I should have known the number was wrong, since the numbers increase from East to West.  

All of the above also applies to packages shipped through UPS or Fed Ex.  The rule of thumb is to pack everything like it was very fragile and that it might be run over by a truck.  Try shipping through a contract pack and mail out fit, some will kick back any packages that are not packed correctly, because they do not want to be blamed for the package being torn up.

Does the


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## dogcatcher (Dec 18, 2010)

Duplictate post


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## OKLAHOMAN (Dec 18, 2010)

jttheclockman said:


> Heck I just got a package from OKLAHOMAN Roy and it was sent through the good old post office and it too looked like it went through a war. Bent the refill and it was sticking out of the envelope. Roy doubled the envelope and all but still.
> 
> Roy just to let you know I got it and can save the contents. Thanks.


 

You mean to tell me all that was left of the surprise Lotus I made for your Christmas gift was one bent refill..........:biggrin::wink:.


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## jttheclockman (Dec 18, 2010)

OKLAHOMAN said:


> jttheclockman said:
> 
> 
> > Heck I just got a package from OKLAHOMAN Roy and it was sent through the good old post office and it too looked like it went through a war. Bent the refill and it was sticking out of the envelope. Roy doubled the envelope and all but still.
> ...


 

Yea I got ripped off. One of the postal workers must have taken the rest of it and said to themselves he will never know. I can always get a new refill. I am sure it was a beauty.


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## workinforwood (Dec 18, 2010)

I have some missing packages out there this year. One of them almost made it and then for some reason it left the state it was to be in and went onward. I've never had issues with USPS in the past, but right now, being Christmas time, and USPS is understaffed, so half the people working there right now are temps.  Temp workers don't care about anything.  If they go out on deliveries and pass your street by accident..the whole street is undeliverable.  I've had UPS do that to me before when my normal driver is on vacation.  It is frustrating.


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## jttheclockman (Dec 18, 2010)

workinforwood said:


> I have some missing packages out there this year. One of them almost made it and then for some reason it left the state it was to be in and went onward. I've never had issues with USPS in the past, but right now, being Christmas time, and USPS is understaffed, so half the people working there right now are temps. Temp workers don't care about anything. If they go out on deliveries and pass your street by accident..the whole street is undeliverable. I've had UPS do that to me before when my normal driver is on vacation. It is frustrating.


 

I too have a couple missing packages out there and the thing is I have lost the trace and have no idea where they are. Shipping this time of the year is a gamble at best. I don't care what the record shows. i bet more packages are lost this time of the year.

 Last year we did a solar panel job at a huge FedX facility and I witnessed first hand at loading docks many many many packages that either fell off the conveyor lines being loaded onto trucks and just sitting on the ground under the trucks and all over. Technically we were not allowed to touch the packages in any way but I had to at least pick them up and put on the loading dock. Some sat out in the rain for days. They would have someone come by every so often to look for things like this but so many were overlooked. I will say this though it was right around this time of the year when I was working on that job and the volume of items that come through this one particular hub was astounding. They were also in the process of adding more conveyor lines. I guess the percentages are your package makes it there in good condition.


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## Drstrangefart (Dec 18, 2010)

My buddy Steven joined up with the Army a while after I bribed him heavily to go get his GED so he could move past working at Hardee's like he'd been doing for years. He tried to reward me by sending me a piece of shrapnel from his first grenade training exercise. The envelope had a large hole in it, and it took about a month to figure out what the hell it came from. I was mildly annoyed, but then agina, you don't wanna try to send a jagged shard of steel in a regular envelope with a letter.


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## Smitty37 (Dec 18, 2010)

workinforwood said:


> Regular envelopes are always the worst..you can not put anything but paper into them. Not even a single refill can go in a regular envelope, because they put those through a machine with rollers that will smash into any type of object, ejecting it from the envelope. *Supposedly you can have a sticker put on the envelope that says hand stamp only on it and that stops the envelope from going through the machine, but I don't trust that.* Not making excuses for the post office either, I'm just saying that regular mail envelope damage can MOSTLY be avoided by simply not putting anything but letters or bills inside them.
> 
> I had a padded envelope with a few things I got from Johnny CNC and it was ripped open on one side, but somehow the envelope and the contents still made it here! We were lucky.


 
My wife does that all the time...irritates the heck out of me but all of her stuff seems to get through ok.


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## latelearner (Dec 18, 2010)

I just shipped a Delta 46-460 to a fellow IAP member via UPS and upon delivery, he had to refuse the package because the lathe was damaged beyond repair. UPS had to try pretty hard to crack the motor housing and leave the motor hanging only by some wires. This lathe was still under warranty, but like an idiot I didn't take out the extra insurance. UPS total payback to me = $100.00


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## Smitty37 (Dec 18, 2010)

*I've gotten them*

I have gotten damaged envelopes but in defense of USPS it does not happen often.

They have a rate for thick envelope that can't be machine handled I think it's about 50% higher than the normal rate for same weight.  My wife sends envelopes with items in them all the time and they seem to get through ok. 

I send about 100/200 or so packages a month all with confirmed delivery and in the USA I'v had exactly one loss (damaged not lost) in the last 3 years.  That compares to about one or two a month before confirmed delivery was available on line - that convinces me that the earlier loses were more dishonest buyers than postal loss.

I've had 4 or 5 international loses (all left the USA and didn't arrive at their destination including a $500 shipment currently late)...enough that next year I'm not shipping international other than Canada.

The one that gets lost or damaged is the one we remember, the thousand that got through ok we soon forget.


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## TellicoTurning (Dec 19, 2010)

bettyt44720 said:


> hard to believe they would even deliver an envelope like this. seems to me when the machine devoures an envelope that a human would have to pick up the pieces. oh well see for yourself........




Oh I don't know... I had an occasion where a fellow turner sent out some screws for my chucks.... the envelope was turn and the screws all fell out... so the post office got together a new envelope and picked up things off the floor and sent them along to me.... someone, somewhere got an envelope of screws and I have their house keys.  :biggrin::biggrin:


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## TellicoTurning (Dec 19, 2010)

Russianwolf said:


> Then their's the package I received yesterday....
> 
> 
> Nice mess inside. A paint pen had exploded and two containers of glass had broken.......
> ...



This was why I always hated handling hazmat packages... some of the things that get shipped are down right dangerous...


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## TellicoTurning (Dec 19, 2010)

wolftat said:


> Russianwolf said:
> 
> 
> > Then their's the package I received yesterday....
> ...



I never worked for UPS, but did work for a major cargo carrier... we never kicked packages... but when loading the rear belly of an aircraft, we often stood in the doorway and tossed the mail bags to the rear... at the very rear of the compartment it was only 3 feet high so no one wanted to crawl up in there to "pack" mail.  

An old time employee once said " definition of fragile is do not drop or throw over 20 feet" 

Truth is, no human could sort the thousands and thousands of pieces of mail at the speed the machines can... we can have speed or we can have human handling... not both.


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## TellicoTurning (Dec 19, 2010)

Smitty37 said:


> I have gotten damaged envelopes but in defense of USPS it does not happen often.
> 
> They have a rate for thick envelope that can't be machine handled I think it's about 50% higher than the normal rate for same weight.  My wife sends envelopes with items in them all the time and they seem to get through ok.
> 
> ...



Smitty,
It's unfortunate, but the loss ratio is much lower than the thread makes it sound... your "lost" international packages are likely only "lost" to you... the consignee may well have gotten them through customs "under the table" so that he didn't have to pay duties on the contents.... it's a given that some countries have such corrupt customs systems that shipments routinely "go lost" but are actually received by the consignee.... example, when we shipped to Nigeria, we routinely included "dash" in the shipment charges to pay off the inspectors so they wouldn't hold up or "lose" our freight.  I also "lost" several shipments into South America... the freight flew out on direct aircraft, landed on schedule, but was claimed to not have arrived....One piece was a $6000 machine in a crate that was 8' tall x 6' wide and 10' long.... we never got a claim from the consignee, but the airlines reported it missing from their warehouse inventory... my customer claimed non-delivery and we filed claim with the airlines... 
Most European countries and Canada have a pretty secure customs system.


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## dogcatcher (Dec 19, 2010)

TellicoTurning said:


> Truth is, no human could sort the thousands and thousands of pieces of mail at the speed the machines can... we can have speed or we can have human handling... not both.



It could be done with enough manpower, but the 44 cents an ounce would likely be about $5 per ounce.  Everything shipped would cost more, Online sales would come to a stop.


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