USPS In Transit Problems

[kootenay joe]

This is not about a knife but a package containing a knife so i hope this forum is o.k. with this post. If not please move to the right forum.
I have a GEC knife coming from KSF. On Dec 31 it gets to Knoxville. On Jan. 1 it leaves Knoxville. It then disappears until Jan 5 when it arrives in Denver at 3:11 am. Then over 24 hrs later it leaves Denver Jan 6 at 7:09 am. Then 3 hours later at 10:21 Jan 6, it arrives in Denver.
Have you had anything like this occur ? Do you know why parcel gets stuck in one place, or disappears for days ?
This knife is being shipped to Northport WA. which means it goes to Spokane before Northport. I have not seen USPS parcels go through Denver on their way to Northport.
I have no idea what is going on with this shipment.
kj

[ea42]

Roland I had a knife that was to go from New York to Wyoming travel all over the country (including Puerto Rico!!!) before it got to its destination. Also had one that went in a loop between three cities in California for two weeks before it finally broke free and eventually wound up on my door step. Sometimes I guess things just go a little wonky, but as long as you see that it's still being registered as in transit I think you'll be OK. It's when it suddenly disappears off the radar and never shows up again that you have a problem.

Eric

[Old Hunter]

Roland, this Christmas season has been my worst for USPS tracking. My recent Case Barlow from Shepherd Hills Cutlery showed up without ever being scanned after USPS accepted it (yes, at least I got it!) I have a knife that was due from 313MIKE on Saturday the 5th - even late Saturday night the USPS tracker kept reporting it would be here NLT 8:00 pm, now its been updated to today's delivery (we'll be gone until Thursday so it gets to lay on the porch three days). Seems to me they just move mail helter skelter when it's busy and don't worry about schedules, scanning tracking numbers, on-time delivery, etc. (all the non-essential stuff). JerryD has written several posts here about the misadventures of his knives on USPS. OH

[Meridian_Mike]

Dang Roland..... you would start a thread like this with my 2OT on it's way in the USPS fubar system.......LOL.

Yep, I had a knife sent from Wyoming a few months ago. I got to a USPS station just 80 miles from me and sat there for a week before it started to move again. I was told if a package goes to the wrong station by mistake, when they scan it in it tell them it is off track. SO, it goes into a special bin to be taken care of later. NOW.... who the heck knows how long it will lay in that "SPECIAL" bin before it can be put back on track by whoever gives a rats tail?

My son even told me he had a package go to a station 20 miles to his south and laid there for several days before he went to get it..... AND EVEN THEN.... they didn't want to give it to him!

Anything the government touches turns to crap!

[tongueriver]

If you think it's bad now you need to go back in time to the holiday season of 1971, when I began my career with the post office. Absolute chaos, including drunkeness and thievery. We had a really bad storm early in the season and trucks started backing up until they had to park miles away. We were stacking parcels into mountains over fifty feet high. The first parcels, on the bottom, dating from the middle of December were the last to ship out 3 or 4 weeks later. Massive damage. Today the post office is a well-oiled machine compared to the 'good old days.' However, I suggest delaying any parcel mailings over the holiday season.

[rea1eye]

Tracking a package thru USPS is often interesting. About a year ago, I had a knife sent from
Texas. It had sat in several Texas cities for 3-4 days after shipping. Then when it left Texas
it just seemed to lightening speed to me. Tracking does make me feel a little better when
it takes about a week to ship something in continental USA.

Bob

[kootenay joe]

I have a P.O. box inside the P.O. in Northport, WA. because many knife sellers will not ship to Canada and 99% of collectible knives are in USA, not Canada. I have received a great many USPS deliveries and the service is excellent. First Class mail from the other side and other end of the country often arrives in my box 48 hours after being mailed. That is impressive.
I started this thread not to complain about USPS but to try to learn why a package can have difficulties like getting 'moved along'.
In this situation i am assuming KSF packaged and addressed it properly.
kj
Edit to add: Weather can play a roll in delays. Have there been major storms in Knoxville or Denver in the last few days ?

[wlf]

I mailed out 87 #14s and only 1 was slow, but for some reason Roland, it was very slow.

I don’t have any answers, don’t know why. As Tom said, it just went wonky, but it finally got there.

That’s about a 99% good report.

[XX Case XX]

I shipped 2 knives out last week. Both were delayed for unknown reasons. I figured that after the holidays it would get better but it actually got worse. Perhaps there are other factors involved but I guess I'll never know. I guess I should feel lucky they arrived at all...


______________
Mike

[markpreston]

Had a buddy mail me a Case peanut from Texas Wednesday afternoon and it was in my Pennsylvania mailbox at 2:30 on Friday! Figure how they pulled that one off. Lol

[Sharpnshinyknives]

I have a P.O. box inside the P.O. in Northport, WA. because many knife sellers will not ship to Canada and 99% of collectible knives are in USA, not Canada. I have received a great many USPS deliveries and the service is excellent. First Class mail from the other side and other end of the country often arrives in my box 48 hours after being mailed. That is impressive.
I started this thread not to complain about USPS but to try to learn why a package can have difficulties like getting 'moved along'.
In this situation i am assuming KSF packaged and addressed it properly.
kj
Edit to add: Weather can play a roll in delays. Have there been major storms in Knoxville or Denver in the last few days ?

Roland, I have seen parcels placed on airliners. That might explain the moving back and forth. Sending it on to one place to be sent back to where it came from because room opened up to forward it from there to another destination. I don’t know how they do it. It’s an amazing thing to work out all the logistics of moving parcels.
SSk

[OLDE CUTLER]

Sundog and I ordered a couple of #81 Bull Moose knives from KSF on Jan 3. They shipped on the 4th, were in Chattanooga on the 5th, Sioux Falls on the 6th, delivered on the 7th. Whats the problem? LOL No I have had a share of this like everyone. You have to remember that at rush time your item is just one of a BILLION and is nothing special to the Post Office employees. We waited til after the rush to order and that probably helped. And stuff gets in the wrong bins and -------------who knows where it might go.

[kootenay joe]

I accept that a certain small percentage of parcels will have a problem at one of the "Regional Distribution Centers". What i do understand here is that it spent 4 days in Knoxville, i.e. problem, it got stuck there. Finally makes it to Denver and is now stuck there for over 48 hours. It is having a problem at every step of the way, which is odd.
I paid for it Dec 27. Gets to USPS Dec 31. Today is Jan 7th and all that has happened is parcel has gone to Knoxville then Denver in 8 days. Seeing it make no progress takes the enjoyment out of the purchase. I don't understand why but a knife i was looking forward to, becomes less important each day.
kj

[tongueriver]

The Christmas rush for the post office and the UPS, and probably Fed Ex does NOT end on December 26th and not on the 7th of January. There are returns, backed up mail, and glitches because of a really impossible work load. The post office uses untrained temporary workers around Christmas. Right after Christmas a lot of senior employees, exhausted from overtime work, take mandatory 'use it or lose it' vacation time, which was denied to them until after Christmas. And so on. It is just a bad time for mailing.

[zzyzzogeton]

There are various factors that cause delays in arrival.

I had one knife bounce between Minnesota and Victoria TX (just north of Corpus) about 5 times. The shipper put the wrong zip code on the package for a little town outside Victoria. But the name on the package was my town. The package would get to Victoria and then be sent back to Minnesota because of a bad address. And back and forth. Several times. I explained to to my post master about it and he went in the back and put in a notice for the package to be hand stopped and examined. They did that and fixed the zip and it got to me 2 days later.

I had a sword go from Pennsylvania to Florida to California to Hawaii to FIJI and than back to Texas. I knew it went to Fiji only because it had Fiji postal service stamps all over it. No one ever figured out how that happened.

When a package is dropped off at the PO, it is scanned in as being accepted. It's thrown in a big bin. When the bin is full, out it goes on the next truck. So a bin may st there for a day or two, depending on the type of bin it is (express, parcel post, whatever). When a bin is dropped off, depending on when it arrives, it may not be emptied and distributed until the next day.

Sometime something glitches and the package/bin drops off the grid. Not because it is lost, but because a scan didn't work right, but it got sent on anyway. Sometimes the weird paths are due to availability of space on the planes - There's a package in NY headed to Texas. There's room on a plane heading to Colorado but not the plane headed directly to Dallas. So the bin gets put on the Colorado plane because it is at least kinda headed south. Then it may wait in Colorado for a while.

Same thing happens when the bins go by ground.

Since I started having every thing sent to a PO box 8 years ago rather than my home address, I have only had 2 packages not make it. Prior to that, I would have 2 or 3 packages a month lost to porch pirates and mailbox shoppers. So I am happy with the PO results.

The key is patience. Generally, the packages will show up.

[kootenay joe]

Thank you to tr & zzyzz. Your posts give me a better understanding of what a package goes through to arrive at it's destination. I am now impressed that more do not make unintended side trips.
kj

[just bob]

Ebay has started to add guaranteed delivery dates from some sellers with excellent histories. Well Ebay may guarantee them, but I can assure you USPS does not and never will. Ebay is putting sellers in the cross hairs when they do this. Here is my recent experience. I sold a knife that was going to Houston, TX. It was posted the day after the auction ended and clearly the tracking information was available to the buyer. I usually don't look back at the tracking and assume everything is alright unless notified by the buyer that there is a problem. Anyway this knife left here and for some strange, unknown reason took a 9 -10 day hiatus in Indianapolis. USPS has no explanation as to why - only to say things happen. Then when the knife did make it to Houston it is clearly marked on the tracking that they are unable to deliver the item due to flooding and they are unable to access the property. The poor guys gets his knife about 2 weeks after it was sent out and clearly after the Ebay guarantee. He left bad feedback saying knife arrives late after Ebay guarantee. He is right about that, but the circumstances were way beyond my control as a seller. I contact ebay and they tell me to fill out a form for feedback revision and email it to the seller. I do just that and get no response for 5 days. I then call ebay again and ask for help. They give me the standard line that feedback is just an opinion and they don't get involved - it is between the buyer and seller. I tell them this is not an opinion at all but a clear case of an error on part of the USPS and as a seller I am powerless to do anything about it, but the tracking can clearly show the facts concerning the delivery of this item. I am connected to a supervisor who reviews the tracking and removes the bad feedback. What a hassle for a worthless guarantee. I guess the moral of the story is a worthless guarantee to no guarantee at all. Thank you USPS.

[zzyzzogeton]

Ebay has started to add guaranteed delivery dates from some sellers with excellent histories. Well Ebay may guarantee them, but I can assure you USPS does not and never will. Ebay is putting sellers in the cross hairs when they do this. Here is my recent experience. I sold a knife that was going to Houston, TX. It was posted the day after the auction ended and clearly the tracking information was available to the buyer. I usually don't look back at the tracking and assume everything is alright unless notified by the buyer that there is a problem. Anyway this knife left here and for some strange, unknown reason took a 9 -10 day hiatus in Indianapolis. USPS has no explanation as to why - only to say things happen. Then when the knife did make it to Houston it is clearly marked on the tracking that they are unable to deliver the item due to flooding and they are unable to access the property. The poor guys gets his knife about 2 weeks after it was sent out and clearly after the Ebay guarantee. He left bad feedback saying knife arrives late after Ebay guarantee. He is right about that, but the circumstances were way beyond my control as a seller. I contact ebay and they tell me to fill out a form for feedback revision and email it to the seller. I do just that and get no response for 5 days. I then call ebay again and ask for help. They give me the standard line that feedback is just an opinion and they don't get involved - it is between the buyer and seller. I tell them this is not an opinion at all but a clear case of an error on part of the USPS and as a seller I am powerless to do anything about it, but the tracking can clearly show the facts concerning the delivery of this item. I am connected to a supervisor who reviews the tracking and removes the bad feedback. What a hassle for a worthless guarantee. I guess the moral of the story is a worthless guarantee to no guarantee at all. Thank you USPS.

just bob - that is one reason I seldom sell anything on ebay. It may be the best way to get your merchandise out in the public eye, but ebay's real attitude is "We just want our cut."

With their new policy, I would probably put a disclaimer (not that it would be read by the buyer) that says

"Ebay's guaranteed delivery policy has absolutely control of either the US Postal Service or the weather.

The US Postal Service doesn't care about Ebay's promises and Ebay does not have a direct line to mother nature, regardless of how arrogant their Executive Officers act.

I guarantee to ship your purchase ASAP. I can't guarantee when it will arrive at your door."

But then I can be the south end of a northbound mule.

[kootenay joe]

The slow sorry saga of my knife in USPS transit continues being weird. Mailed Dec 31, spent 5 days in Knoxville, then 2 days in Denver, and now 2 days and counting in Seattle. My mail does not come through Seattle. It goes directly from where ever it was shipped to Spokane. But the weird part is why does it spend days at every Regional Distribution Center ?
Usually if a package gets held up some place, once it gets clear of that, it gets delivered very soon. This package is having trouble continually.
I keep putting off my trip to Northport where 3 knives have been in the P.O. about 2 weeks waiting for me to get them. I have twice postponed the trip (5 hr drive) hoping this stuck Stag Dixie Stockman would arrive. However, i'm going tomorrow even though Dixie, for some reason, can't make it.
kj

[DM11]

I have a knife that left Tn headed to Ks and went to Billings, Mt. I wonder where it will go today?

[ken98k]

The USPS has been kind of screwy last couple months. It seems they may be overwhelmed.

[Lansky1]

I've got an ebony Case canoe thats stuck in a post office in my state on the last leg of delivery for over 4 days. Don't have a good feeling about this at all ... never ever has anything like this happened before.

[kootenay joe]

It definitely seems as Ken says that USPS is having more problems that usual in the last about 2 months.
I signed in for the tracking updates. Over half the emails said something like "your item is in transit to the destination". It doesn't tell me where it is or where it is going. For example. I received 3 of these emails after package left Knoxville. I had no idea of where it was going. Then 3 days after leaving Knoxville it shows up in Denver. To send an email that says it is "in transit" is stupid. I know it is in transit. They are emails that tell you nothing.
kj

[Rotten]

I signed up for USPS informed delivery and get text messages when a package gets delivered.
Yesterday I was watching a delivery and expected it to arrive at the usual time and was waiting for the mailman. When he arrived it wasn't my usual mailman and he said he didn't have my package. Then at 5:05PM I got a text that it had just been delivered. I was sitting less than 5 feet from the door and immediately checked but there was no package and no delivery man to be seen. I filed a report of what happened online, we'll see what happens next.
I'm thinking that the new guy was overwhelmed and scanned it as delivered when he got back to the post office so he wouldn't get into trouble. Just my opinion. He was bouncing around all over the neighborhood in a very disorganized manner like it was his first time or something.
Just hope my regular guy is back before the latest batch of purchases arrives.

[just bob]

As it is cold here today and I don't plan on doing much I'll share one of my post office experiences. About 10 years ago I became interested in buying and selling on ebay. The post office in the biggest city near me usually has a line and sometimes parking is an issue. I knew there was a much smaller post office within 5 miles of me in a small town with only about a thousand people. At that time it was open 8 hours a day just like the bigger ones are. I began taking a few items a week in there and talking with the woman that was the post master at that time. She wanted to know where I lived and why I wasn't using the post office in that city? I told here I kind of lived in the country and this was just as convenient. I kind of slowly became a regular there. She started to inquire what I was selling and I told her I was selling a few old pocket knives I had. She said no way, under no circumstances was I allowed to ship pocket knives through the USPS that was strictly prohibited. I asked her if that was so how in the world did all of those knives on ebay get from one place to another. She said she didn't know but assured me she would not ship them through her post office. I went to the bigger post office and of course never had an issue. I came back home and found the postal regulations that showed you could ship pocket knives, but not switch blades and a few other types of knives through the mail. I printed them off and went back over the next time and showed them to her. She said well I knew it was something like that and she didn't get asked to ship many knives and may have been wrong about it. No issues until a bit later and I had a few older coins I wanted to sell on ebay. I sold them and went there to mail them and asked to purchase postal insurance. She asked what was in the package and I told her rare coins. Then again I got a huge reaction. No way, under any conditions can you insure rare coins for more than face value through the USPS. What?, I asked. I had did a bit of research on this and saw that rare diamonds were sent through the USPS insured so I felt sure I was in the right, but she said no that if I was selling a rare dime I could only insure if for 10¢ because that was its face value. OK, back home and back to the postal regulations. They did say that you could not over insure rare coins. I.E. if a coin sold on ebay for $100 you could not insure it for $200 and that kind of made sense to me at that time. Again I printed them off and went back to speak with her about it. She looked at what they said and did agree that maybe you could insure rare coins and she had misinterpreted the regulations. I had no issues with coins from then on. BTW at that time you had to fill out a form to get postal insurance. She gave me a book with about 500 of those forms in it and told me that any time in the future I was going to send something insured to go ahead and fill out the form before I came to the post office. It would save her a lot of work. No big issues, but I did notice once that she had brought a plant in from home and someone had knocked it on the floor and broken the pot and dirt and the broken pot remained in the lobby. I walked around them for a day or 2 then asked her why she didn't clean that up or if there was an issue I'd be happy to do it for her. NO!, she said postal regulations prohibited her from doing janitorial work and they would file a grievance against her if she cleaned it up. We all walked through it for several more days. I'll close this out with the capper. At that time there was a dental office next door to the post office. That was my dentist. One day I was going to the dentist and had some bills ready to send out. I parked at the dentist, walked to the post office and put the bills in the mail box out front and then went in to the dentist. In short order she came through the front door and asked me what I thought I was doing. I said what do you mean? She said under no circumstance were you to use the mail box in front of the post office. That all of the towns people knew if you had outgoing mail you carried it into the post office and put it into the mail slot. All I did was cause her a lot of extra work by doing that. I told her I didn't know any better but in the future would use the slot in the lobby. When she left I asked the dental receptionist about the post office lady. That every time I tried to use the post office I was made to feel unwelcome and wasn't doing anything at all wrong so far as I knew. That brought a huge laugh and she said let me tell you something and these are her words - not mine. Sue (the post master) is known as the laziest white woman in the world. She will go to any length and do or say anything to get out of work. She suggested the small dental office get a business account and use the post office in the bigger city instead of hers. She worked less than an hour a day putting up mail and wanted to spend the rest of the day reading Better Homes and Gardens and talking with her female friends when they came into the post office to pick up their mail. Anything or anyone that kept her from doing that was a nuisance and she would try to get rid of them in any way possible. Suddenly things make a lot more sense. I was never doing anything wrong, she just didn't want any new customers. The post office is only open 4 hours a day now and Sue has retired. I'm sure she is just busy as a beaver. Amazing to me that she got by with as much as she did for so many years. The comment in the above post about getting a different price on packages from post office to post office sure rings true with me. I'm sure she was overcharging me for packages with the hopes I'd discover it an go somewhere else and leave her alone. Amazing how much authority a post master actually has and the amount of money she was getting paid even at that time.