Time for the USPS to go private?

[billeisele 130]

The  USPS has declined far too much, to the point that's it's unreliable.

Someone came to my house on Monday from Charleston on the way to Atlanta on a business trip. She left something important in Charleston. On Tuesday her hubby had it sent to her hotel in Atlanta Next Day Delivery. The cost was $30 plus $17.50 for Tracking. By Friday it still had not arrived. Tracking indicated that it had not left Charleston.

Her options were to have the hotel refuse delivery or cancel the delivery for a fee.

The response from USPS was, "If you come to our office we'll refund the $30 if you can prove what you're saying."

How does this make any sense? They take no responsibility, don't care and there's no recourse.

We're wondering if it will ever arrive at the hotel and IF the hotel will remember to no accept the delivery.

[JoeWeber 2,720]

1 hour ago, billeisele said:

The  USPS has declined far too much, to the point that's it's unreliable.

Someone came to my house on Monday from Charleston on the way to Atlanta on a business trip. She left something important in Charleston. On Tuesday her hubby had it sent to her hotel in Atlanta Next Day Delivery. The cost was $30 plus $17.50 for Tracking. By Friday it still had not arrived. Tracking indicated that it had not left Charleston.

Her options were to have the hotel refuse delivery or cancel the delivery for a fee.

The response from USPS was, "If you come to our office we'll refund the $30 if you can prove what you're saying."

How does this make any sense? They take no responsibility, don't care and there's no recourse.

We're wondering if it will ever arrive at the hotel and IF the hotel will remember to no accept the delivery.

I had a UPS Parcel delivered to the carrier in CA on the 11th for delivery on the 12th to a UPS store in Oregon. 

The first delay was this:

Your shipment

1ZXF0461039451....

Estimated delivery

Tuesday, April 16 by 7:00 P.M.

The next delay was this:

Your shipment

1ZXF0461039451....

Estimated delivery

Wednesday, April 17 by 7:00 P.M.

They have their problems, too, and have never offered money back to me. Just sorry's.

USPS Next day or Two day is always a lot better priced than UPS or FedEx domestic rates and as reliable or better from Oregon for me. For delivery critical letters to the FAA in Oklahoma City I always us the USPS.

 

[wmw999 2,444]

The thing is that USPS has to subsidize the delivery of packages to very remote places. It's kind of like public schools -- they have to be able to educate virtually everyone, while private schools can screen out the more expensive kids to educate (or simply open a super-expensive school). 

With USPS, you can have your letter (which admittedly is getting to be an anachronism) delivered anywhere in the US, including via bush plane in Alaska, for the same price. That has to come somehow. Or we can just say something like "well, you chose Alaska, sucks to be you."

Wendy P.

[gowlerk 2,190]

USPS is being run by a man who wants to destroy it. I use it along with Canada Post whenever I have a choice of carriers. 

[Phil1111 1,149]

1 hour ago, wmw999 said:

The thing is that USPS has to subsidize the delivery of packages to very remote places. It's kind of like public schools -- they have to be able to educate virtually everyone, while private schools can screen out the more expensive kids to educate (or simply open a super-expensive school). 

With USPS, you can have your letter (which admittedly is getting to be an anachronism) delivered anywhere in the US, including via bush plane in Alaska, for the same price. That has to come somehow. Or we can just say something like "well, you chose Alaska, sucks to be you."

Wendy P.

Agree, considering the remote locations that USPS must deliver mail to and what it charges for letters. What little it charges for small packages internationally. Its a deal for Americans.

UPS and Fed-Ex have better tracking and en-route transit standards. But at greater cost. In addition for international shipments USPS is a deal on customs brokerage charges.

[ryoder 1,590]

In December there were a flurry of news articles here in CO about dismal USPS service in the CO mountain towns. Staff shortages seem to be the root cause. e.g.

CBS News: USPS Inspector General: Colorado mountain towns have worse delivery than rest of state, country

Latest idea is to ship all Western CO mail to Denver for sorting, which would mean delays:

CO Sun: Postal Service floats idea of driving Western Slope mail to Denver and back before delivery

[billvon 2,991]

6 hours ago, billeisele said:

The  USPS has declined far too much, to the point that's it's unreliable.

Agreed.

Republicans have long held that the government is the worst way to do anything.  They are now appointing handpicked people to the Postal Service to make _sure_ it's the worst.

Louis DeJoy, the current postmaster, was appointed by Trump to slow down the delivery of mail-in ballots, since Trump perceived that those ballots tended to be more democratic than republican.  He succeeded.  Before his arrival, the USPS had a first-class mail on-time delivery rate of 90.6%.  Within a year it had declined to 71%.

Fortunately the solution is simple - get rid of DeJoy and get someone more interested in delivering mail and less interested in destroying the USPS.

 

[kallend 2,026]

There might be some constitutional issues involced in privatizing it.  Article 1 Section 8.

[jakee 1,489]

2 hours ago, billvon said:

Agreed.

Republicans have long held that the government is the worst way to do anything.  They are now appointing handpicked people to the Postal Service to make _sure_ it's the worst.

A similar thing is happening here, after privatisation. Royal Mail was privatised, with the company getting all the regulatory advantages and privileges that the state owned entity had - and in return having the mandatory responsibility for maintaining next day, every day letter deliveries anywhere in the country.

What they did instead was split off the profitable services like parcel deliveries and data sales from the letter service, fail to invest in it and allow standards to fall below the mandatory levels, then complain it'd be far too expensive for them to be expected to rebuild an unprofitable service so can't they just scrap the one thing that was the whole point of Royal Mail being a public service in the first place and just keep the profitable stuff that any other private delivery company can do?

[Stumpy 284]

On 4/13/2024 at 10:00 PM, jakee said:

and just keep the profitable stuff that any other private delivery company can do?

But better
I'd never use parcel force by choice now. DPD seems to be the reliable option where I live.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

On 4/13/2024 at 1:23 PM, kallend said:

There might be some constitutional issues involced in privatizing it.  Article 1 Section 8.

Constitution only counts to keep guns.

[SkyDekker 1,465]

On 4/13/2024 at 4:31 AM, billeisele said:

The  USPS has declined far too much, to the point that's it's unreliable.

Someone came to my house on Monday from Charleston on the way to Atlanta on a business trip. She left something important in Charleston. On Tuesday her hubby had it sent to her hotel in Atlanta Next Day Delivery. The cost was $30 plus $17.50 for Tracking. By Friday it still had not arrived. Tracking indicated that it had not left Charleston.

Her options were to have the hotel refuse delivery or cancel the delivery for a fee.

The response from USPS was, "If you come to our office we'll refund the $30 if you can prove what you're saying."

How does this make any sense? They take no responsibility, don't care and there's no recourse.

We're wondering if it will ever arrive at the hotel and IF the hotel will remember to no accept the delivery.

So having a business man run it for 4 years isn't helping? Almost like it is by design....

[tkhayes 348]

On 4/13/2024 at 7:31 AM, billeisele said:

The  USPS has declined far too much, to the point that's it's unreliable.

Someone came to my house on Monday from Charleston on the way to Atlanta on a business trip. She left something important in Charleston. On Tuesday her hubby had it sent to her hotel in Atlanta Next Day Delivery. The cost was $30 plus $17.50 for Tracking. By Friday it still had not arrived. Tracking indicated that it had not left Charleston.

Her options were to have the hotel refuse delivery or cancel the delivery for a fee.

The response from USPS was, "If you come to our office we'll refund the $30 if you can prove what you're saying."

How does this make any sense? They take no responsibility, don't care and there's no recourse.

We're wondering if it will ever arrive at the hotel and IF the hotel will remember to no accept the delivery.

USPS is controlled by Congress effectively and if they bothered, like so many other things, they could actually fix a lot of the issues.  They effectively defunded the organization years ago by putting unfunded and unrealistic financial burdens on them to fund the pension program without figuring out the money that would be needed to make that happen.

USPS stamps should be $0.80 and that would solve a lot of issues with their money problems.  service comes by better fudning and the freedom to make decisions that work, as well as the DIRECTIVES to make it work

Given that it is written into the Constitution, privatizing it is not actually an option, nor would I support that.  The second you put profits at the forefront, the system will become corrupt overnight.

 

It's not corrupt now, it is just shitty service.  Privatizing it would ensure corruption AND shitty service.  And agree with the earlier comment that it is being run by people that want to dismantle it, much like public schools all over the country.  As long as we keep voting for idiots, this is what we will get

[kallend 2,026]

4 hours ago, tkhayes said:

  As long as we keep voting for idiots, this is what we will get

Be even worse if we elect the con-man a second time.

[billeisele 130]

The person decided to cancel the shipment to avoid the risk of the hotel accepting the delivery and it never being returned to her. Even though it was not delivered 5 days after the one-day delivery fee was paid, she had to pay $17 to have it returned to her. The cancellation fee is non-refundable.

Apparently this is their policy. Escalating and talking to a manager is worthless.

She talked to her peers in Atlanta they told her that it's a well-known fact that the Atlanta PO is understaffed and it's common for mail to be lost or take 5-10 more days to be delivered. If a carrier is out sick that route is just ignored and it takes days for them to catch up.

[wolfriverjoe 1,523]

6 hours ago, billeisele said:

The person decided to cancel the shipment to avoid the risk of the hotel accepting the delivery and it never being returned to her. Even though it was not delivered 5 days after the one-day delivery fee was paid, she had to pay $17 to have it returned to her. The cancellation fee is non-refundable.

Apparently this is their policy. Escalating and talking to a manager is worthless.

She talked to her peers in Atlanta they told her that it's a well-known fact that the Atlanta PO is understaffed and it's common for mail to be lost or take 5-10 more days to be delivered. If a carrier is out sick that route is just ignored and it takes days for them to catch up.

So Trump's appointee Louis DeJoy's plan to tank the Post Office is working?