PO'ed at the PO !!!

[kmac]

I am so mad at the post office. I am building the RT to GS conversion bike project that I posted about a week or so ago. I can not do the physical wrenching yet, but I am gathering parts and taking measurements in preparation.

 

I ordered a GS rear shock from a member here...thank goodness, but I also bought a KTM WP PDS shock on ebay thinking that I may be able to modify it and make a better, more dirt bike oriented shock that a off the shelf GS shock or a $1200-1800 shock.

 

I only paid $70 for a decent WP and was really excited to get it. I have ordered alot of stuff lately from amazon, ebay, and forum contacts so when my mailman rang the bell I had no idea what it was. The box a bit bigger than a shoe box but was VERY light weight...hmmm what is this?

 

I get straight into the house and open the box and dig through all of the balled up stuffing paper and find....NOTHING.

I go back through taking each piece of balled up paper and pull it open to make sure I am not missing something....NOTHING.

 

I now start looking at the label and return address to see if I can figure out what it is...as I look at the box I realize it is REALLY beat up and kind crushed with a big split down one whole corner with some cheesey clear packing tape stuck over the hole...I then see written small on the label...KTM EXC shock.....AHHHHHHHHHH MY SHOCK....Where is it?

 

USPS crushed the package in transit, split the box open, and the shock slid right out and is laying somewhere in a USPS facility or truck on the floor in the corner getting run over by fork lifts. It MAY be on some shelf waiting for a claimer to ID it...If I am lucky...

 

I rush off to my local PO to start the process only to be told there is nothing we can do on "OUR" end....here is a phone number you can call it is not our fault, the senders packaging looks poor....YEAH IT DOES>>>NOW THAT YOU IDIOTS HANDLED IT>

 

They are always crying that they are going broke...yeah ANY business will go broke doing their job the way the PO does.

 

I know some of you are mail carriers probably and so is my wifes brother who I love dearly...but as a company and a business in general the POST OFFICE SUCKS...this is the 4th time in the last year that they have screwed up packages including breaking a doorglass window for my 1949 Studebaker truck that was packed in styrofoam then clad in plywood and wrapped in a padded cardboard box. the friend that shipped it sent me pictures and insured the package and the PO told me there was nothing they could do, they had no evidence that they broke it....REALLY.

 

I CAN NOT STAND YOU USPS P.O.S.

[upflying]

Was the shipment insured?

Does anyone use the post office anymore? FedUp and UPS?

A shock cant be shipped in a shoe box, tape and rolled up newspaper. I blame the sender for the crappy packaging. Properly packaged the shock would survive the post office gorilla handlers.

Glad the post was about the mail, PO also means something else.

[BULLman]

That sucks!!!

 

When I talk to my "Mom & Pop" freight shippers about my how important the packaging is I talk out the old luggage commercial where the people check-in their bags at the airport, flash to a gorilla in a cage beating the cr@p out of their luggage...

 

Packaging. Packaging. Packaging.

 

This also why I end up saving almost any shipping box that comes my way - just in case I might need to ship something.

 

Hope you got insurance, too.

 

[kmac]

Bob, I said a "shoe box sized box"...It was a full cardboard shipping quality box.

The shock was wrapped in other cardboard and taped up and then packed tight in the box with paper stuffing.

 

It was packed fine for anything other than Gorilla handling.

 

No insurance. They PO told me that as far as they were concerned the box was delivered....wouldn't be a claim anyway.

 

I told the Post Master at my PO who was very flippant and short with me that she should be glad that I do not build houses and buildings the way the PO does THEIR job.

Her reply was "yeah well not all houses are built well either"..That kinda ticked me off more. Like that justifies doing a crappy job and not giving a crap while doing poorly....reminds me of a worker I had a saying for..."He may be slow, but at least his work SUCKS",

 

I told the lady post master that if a house was built poorly that again would fall on yet ANOTHER government employee...as City or County Inspector not doing his job....Some crappy construction companies WILL do crappy work, but a good inspector will catch it and call them on it.

 

BTW, I get pissed at the "other POs" once in a while too...but most of the time I deserve their attention and take my knocks without complaint.

[Glenn Reed]

I bought a few items from someone here who was parting out his RT, and while I got everything just fine, the seller related that one other shipment did not get to it's intended recipient.

 

A shock that he sent by USPS.

 

Obviously it was not the one intended for kmac, but this means that they now have at least two motorcycle shocks loose in the bowels of their shipping facilities!

[tallman]

And yet, last Tuesday I won an ebay auction for four bowls to fill in for broken ones in a dish set we have.

 

Auction closed 5pm Pacific Time.

 

Two days later, Thursday, my bowls showed up in a standard smallish USPS "if it fits it ships" box.

 

No breakage and delivery from Cali to Florida in under 48 hours.

 

I don't ship w/out professional packing and insurance.

 

And I've had broken stuff arrive via FedUPSexetc...

 

Sorry you had the problem but sounds like poor packing.

I've bought/shipped shocks and packing them in a box that they can slip out of a corner would be my bad, not the carrier, IMO.

 

It is probaqble that the package will see stress on the corner/side if a single shock is wrapped in a box w/paper.

Paper does not stop crush and everything I've received or shipped we made certain or the shipper did to support the side/edges.

 

Understand the frustration, but I'd be PO'd at the seller for poor packing and shipping practice and lack of insurance.

YMMV

[Natche]

Don't write it off yet. I shipped a book via USPS priority mail in one of their envelopes and apparently I did not seal it properly. The book fell out and the recipient received an empty envelope. A couple of days later the PO found the book and delivered it to the recipient. I would think your shock might be "findable" as well. I would be as nice as pie to the PO staff and see if you can get them to do some extra checking. As to speak with the postmaster.

 

Good luck!

[eddd]

 

Not the greatest picture, but this is the one Glenn is referring to in his post. There was a pair of shocks in the box. Each shock was secured in a triangle of cardboard with their ends covered so they could not damage the box. As you can see on the side, I added extra cardboard to absorb abuse. The box was cut down to size to prevent the shocks from moving around inside. Material was stuffed tightly in all the void areas. The hole is where one of the shocks exited what was left of the box.

 

All you need to know about how your packages are treated can be seen in the condition of the box. It looks like it was repeatedly launched from a catapult. There is zero reason for this to have happened. A report was filed and they are supposedly looking for it, though I doubt they really try very hard in a case like this.

 

Another aspect of this mess that really ticks me off is that this is exactly how the box was dropped off at the door, no note, no explanation.

 

It has been my experience that around the holidays packages sent through the USPS seem to arrive with more signs of rough handling. I don't know if it is the sub-contractors used during this time or less care used in order to deal with the increased volume. Nonetheless, this type of handling is inexcusable.

 

I've recently taken to completely wrapping the entire box in layers of shipping tape and then putting bands of strapping tape around all sides of the box.

 

 

 

 

[Glenn Reed]

As I received three boxes from Eddd, I can attest to the very thorough nature of his packing. None of the three boxes had any issues and I received all parts exactly as promised, via USPS.

 

YMMV.

[Joe Frickin' Friday]

It looks like it was repeatedly launched from a catapult. There is zero reason for this to have happened.

 

And yet it happens. Heck, it's happened twice in this thread alone. The post office (and FedEx and UPS) know that it happens; it's why they offer insurance, and it's why insurance should be purchased for items of any significant value.

 

Another aspect of this mess that really ticks me off is that this is exactly how the box was dropped off at the door, no note, no explanation.

 

I don't know what sort of explanation you'd want. The guy who brings it to your door only knows that he was handed an empty box with a hole in it. The shock might have fallen out at a sorting facility, or it might not have. The first human PO employee to lay eyes on an empty box has no idea where the contents of the box are, what they were, or whether there were even any contents to begin with, so he would have no idea what to put on any note, or whether a note is even needed, or whether to even look for any missing item (was it a single $600 shock, or $2 worth of styrofoam beads? Is it in this facility, or is it still in one of the 800+ trucks that dropped off mail here some time in the last two days?). It's entirely up to the receiving customer to determine whether something's wrong, at which point the post office will do what they can. Given the difficulty of locating missing items along the delivery path, they probably don't try too hard, as it's not worth the effort. Any customer who doesn't insure an item is indicating that it's not worth the effort. And even if it's insured, it's probably not worth their effort to try to find a missing item; it's easier for them to just pay out on the claim.

 

I ship my Mojoblocks out through USPS First Class mail, no insurance and no tracking. A few shipments have been lost or destroyed (customer receives empty padded mailer). Those occasional losses are an acceptable risk/cost for me; the expense of adding insurance and/or tracking is something I can live without. I would choose differently if I was shipping a high-dollar item, regardless of how well I packed it.

[eddd]

It looks like it was repeatedly launched from a catapult. There is zero reason for this to have happened.

 

And yet it happens. Heck, it's happened twice in this thread alone. The post office (and FedEx and UPS) know that it happens; it's why they offer insurance, and it's why insurance should be purchased for items of any significant value.

 

IMHO insurance offered by the USPS is close to worthless. They will not pay the amount you insured. You need to provide proof of the value, like original receipts, and they will fall back on your packing, blaming you for the problem.

 

Another aspect of this mess that really ticks me off is that this is exactly how the box was dropped off at the door, no note, no explanation.

 

I don't know what sort of explanation you'd want...

 

I'm fully aware the guy delivering it was just handed the box, but a simple hand written or a form attached providing directions for who to contact would be the right thing to do. The receiving post office could have those available to the carriers to slap on the box as they sort and load their deliveries for the day.

[Dave McReynolds]

Sorry for the hijack, but since the subject had been mentioned.... I've always assumed that if I sell a used item to someone for $500, I can insure it for $500 when I ship it, because the fact that an unrelated person is willing to pay me $500 for it is prima facie evidence of its value. Is this not the case?

[kmac]

It is not a "fragile" Item and only cost $70 bucks. He did have a "Delivery confirmation" sticker on it and I agree, packing could have been BETTER, but it was sufficiant if not handled like it was a dump truck of gravel.

 

Part of my issue is the attitude of the PO when delivered and when I went there to talk about what to do now....that is COMPLTELY UNACCEPTABLE.

 

As mentioned, the mailman and his supervisor both looked at the box before delivery and saw the big rip in the box and stuck a small bit of cheesey tape on it. ANY brief look at the box would have deduced that there was an issue since it weighed ounces yet had over $19 in postage on it...PROBLEM....RED FLAG.

 

The idea of handing it to me and walking way is aggrivating. Had they even handed me a piece of paper to start the finding it process and aknowledged the problem, been nice and or helpful...what a difference that could have made as opposed to "oh well, we delivered the box, nothing we can do, here is a phone number you can leave a message at..."

 

While $70 is $70 I really want the shock, not the money...although any return will probably have to come through PP or Ebay and will likely ding the seller.

 

 

[szurszewski]

Sorry for the hijack, but since the subject had been mentioned.... I've always assumed that if I sell a used item to someone for $500, I can insure it for $500 when I ship it, because the fact that an unrelated person is willing to pay me $500 for it is prima facie evidence of its value. Is this not the case?

 

That was not my experience the one time I tried to file an insurance claim. The item was a couple of years old, but I had the original receipt (was mailing it to myself from WA to AK) and they still did not want to pay either the value on the receipt/the amount for which it was insured (same dollar amount) because it was "used."

 

Since then I've never bothered to buy USPS insurance, but I've also very rarely had a problem and I lived five years in rural AK and five more years in VERY rural AK and used USPS more than you can imagine (including for most of our groceries for five years). In that time they lost one small envelope of jewelry, which they found and delivered several months later, and damaged the contents of maybe three other boxes (all of which were heavy, large boxes of bulky and heavy food items). In all, I am sure that I saved more money by NOT buying insurance all those years than I would have if I'd purchased insurance AND they'd paid out on the damaged items.

 

If I have something now I am really concerned about and can't afford to eat a loss myself, I ship it UPS or FedEx with appropriate insurance - I don't know what their claim systems are like because I've never had to use them.

[kmac]

So, just to add fuel to my fire...Just this minute my doorbell rings...Fed Ex dropping off the GS shock I bought from a member here. It comes in a similar sized box as my KTM shock. It comes with a bit better packing internally, including a piece of styrofoam on one end, but not the other, and some of those plastic air filled bladders in it and a rag.

The shock still has that clunk clunk clunk inside the box with the loose movement like the KTM shock I am sure had.

However this box was NOT crushed, smashed, split and looking like it was run over by a truck, and the shock was in great shape.

 

THANK YOU forum member {not naming him because we dealt in PM and I do not know if he wants to be mentioned or not, PM discussions are not supposed to be broadcast in open forum I think},

 

I am 100% positive that if this GS shock, in this package had been treated the way the USPS treated my KTM shock, this shock would also be laying on some floor eventually to be throw away.

[elkroeger]

well, there's a reason there's a term such as "going postal"...

 

could be worse, I guess:

 

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/vintage-gibson-guitar-delta-baggage-leevees-214634001.html

[barryd]

All of the common shippers handle thousands, if not millions of packages each day. Whatever is in the box may be special to you, but it isn't to them, and it can't be.

UPS was responsible for the last damaged shipment I received which was a Forrest saw blade coming back from a factory sharpening. They packed it the same way they do all their other blades but UPS managed to destroy it. Stuff happens.

FWIW, of the big three, I've had the best luck with the PO, and for the money, neither UPS nor Fedex comes anywhere close to priority mail.

 

[Mike]

I've had issues with the USPS over the past couple of years, mostly delayed or lost mail, but FedEx has its issues, in terms of package handling. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that, regardless of which shipping service you use, you have to assume that your package will be abused.

 

FedEx sets up a transfer point for nearby offices in the alley adjacent to my office every weekday. I can't tell you how many times I've seen boxes of computer equipment fall out of those trucks during unloading, how often I've seen guys tossing those boxes to one another, etc. It's an eye-opening experience, but I don't think it's unique to these employees or this particular location.

[eddd]

While we're complaining about the USPS I'd like to add that their tracking is close to totally useless.

 

 

[kmac]

All of the common shippers handle thousands, if not millions of packages each day. Whatever is in the box may be special to you, but it isn't to them, and it can't be.

 

That is just a justification. It is crap.

All of the postal/package carriers have only 1 job to do...that is it..1. Delivery the package or mail that people hand them to the destination on the item. Thats it. They don't make the product. They don't design the product. They don't build the destination. They just deliver.

 

If you can not do that effieciently then STOP doing it.

 

I do not care if they THINK about the package as special or not. It is just up to them to delivery as paid for, undamaged. If I only had one thing to do to get my job done I would be pretty damn good at it.

 

The idea that they cant think of every package as special is BS. The HAVE to think of every package as special. Every package IS special. It was paid for by a customer and given to them to be cared for and delivered to the new owner....The reason our stuff is often coming bent, broken, damaged or even missing all together is because NO ONE is making them feel accountable for this stuff. The management in these companies is buying into the thinking you have posted and NOT holding employees accountable.

 

I am a carpenter. I had a guy run over 3 screw gun cords a scissor life and then raise the lift ripping the cord out of the gun...3 different times in 1 day he did this and I had his lay off check there by the end of the day. Done. Now everyone else knows to be more careful, look down at you lift before hitting the raise button, Hold the cords out wide, away from the lift while moving it so this can't happen, done. Easy. Do YOUR job.

 

 

[longjohn]

The po used to have a section called articles found loose in the mails, or something like that which I have successfully used in the past when parcels arrive empty. I don't know if it's still in existence. Check it out.

 

You would be surprised at the amount of effort that goes into connecting mail/parcels with their intended recipient, whether the problem is with the packaging or with an incorrect/incomplete address. Haha damhik

 

I also frequent a popular photography forum and these discussions come up periodically. You will find issues similar to this with every package delivery service

[CoarsegoldKid]

We don't like it when it happens but it does. Packaging is everything. USPS put in my mail box an envelope that was empty and clearly torn with a note that the local office received it that way. The metal buckles were ridiculously packaged. I called the retailer and suggested a better package method. They did on the next shipment.

Although this has nothing to do with a torn package, I once received an empty bubble wrap package from NOMAR. It was supposed to contain wheel weights. And of course NOMAR didn't believe me. Another time FedX status said "delivered". The xxpensive Ohlins package appeared two days later. And just last Friday parts from Rocky Mountain show a status of delivered. Nope. Not here. So I must call them too.

[Bob Palin]

The po used to have a section called articles found loose in the mails, or something like that which I have successfully used in the past when parcels arrive empty. I don't know if it's still in existence. Check it out.

 

It or something like it does exist. Couple of years ago we shipped a tyre to another member and it got lost. Janet initiated the tracing process, they wanted a picture of the item! She went out back to the tyre pile and took a picture of one of the used ones. They found the missing tyre fairly quickly and delivered it, no explanation though. I can imagine them in a giant warehouse somewhere asking some worker "seen one of these" and showing him the picture...

[eddd]

All lost/missing/loose items are sent to Atlanta.

 

Even with a picture they've been unable to locate a large silver shock with a bright red coil spring and an attached hose and preload adjuster that has been missing since December 10th.

 

If you can't find that how hard are you looking?

 

And if you're thinking that they have tens of thousands of items to look through, of course they do, that is what happens when you handle packages like they do.

[racer7]

I live in an apt complex and get packages in good shape, no matter which outfit is handling them. The PO is around the corner as is a UPS store so no issues shipping out, either.

 

But I'm still no huge fan of the PO- I cal them the trash delivery service because the "addressed to occupant" junk mail makes up about 95% of what I get despite my efforts to stay off mailing lists. I throw all this out at the delivery box, never taking it to my apt- so its wasted effort for everyone. We need a "no addressed to occupant" law.

 

The only people who are still stupid enough to waste money mailing bills are insurance companies and the federal government- and even a few of the insurance outfits (the car and bike guys, not the life ins and Medicare types) have parallel e systems. The sooner we go to all electronic billing the less time I'll waste handling paper..

[Bud]

I empathize with the response to you asking what can be done.

 

BTW My UPS driver said they could break a steel bowling ball.

 

He said they do good for light stuff, but heavy stuff, not so well.

 

I'm thinking some postal guy needed the shock more than you did!

[Paul Mihalka]

I am waiting for a USPS package that has tracking and delivery confirmation. The package left Greensboro NC on 12/25. Estimated delivery was 12/27.

Any experience with USPS if the tracked package just does not arrive? I gave them extra time with the holidays, but nothing. I plan to go to the post office tomorrow.

[Paul Mihalka]

Received the package 3 weeks after original shipping. Grrrrrr.....

[kmac]

Paul,

Ask your late package if it noticed a shock sitting on the shelf it was sitting on for the extra 2 weeks?

[LuckyLeif]

Call (800-275-8777) and register your failure to have package rcvd. Your call initiates an investigation into what happemed (or didn't). We actually found lost mail this way.