Post Office Woes

I can remember in recent history when it became possible to mail a letter and have it arrive within 2-3 days (anywhere in the US).

Now, it seems things take at LEAST a week.

I have experimented with driving into Dallas & mailing it in
the main post office, next to the reginal distribution center, having husband mail it frmt he post office near his shop in another part of Dallas. Sending it our from our country post office here, .....

NOTHING seems to halp.

This really annoying me. Why dont they make a priority letter class?

How long does it take things to get to or from your place?

Sbarr mailed Japanese MG seeds to me Priority and it took a month! Was just happy that they came at all!

I can mail to someone in Denmark and have it arrive faster than in North Carolina(less than a day's drive from here). I think that's sad. Sometimes things will arrive 2000 miles away in two days, while a package to Peggy(5 hour drive) takes a week!
Some weeks every package I mail is mashed and some weeks none are mashed.

In Finland a domestic letter takes one day to arrive, sometimes two if it is send from a rural area, like Lapland or something.. :)

Letters to the US take 5 to 9 days, depending on the location of the receiver. By surface, a letter to the US and Canada takes about 25 to 35 working days. |P I rarely use it ;)

A letter to the UK and Ireland takes usually 2 or 3 days. To Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, and Sweden, from 2 to 5 days. By airmail I mean.

You can mail a letter priority... $3.20. Although I wouldn't recommend it because technicly... First Class IS priority.

Last year I went to the Post Office in Virginia Beach to mail an Overnight letter to my home in NC. The clerk said. "Overnight takes 2 days."

What's wrong with this picture?

Evert, so actually a letter you mail to me would arrive sooner than one sent by someone else in Texas !

Go figure!

Cala, BTW, I am off to the sainted post office right now to pick up my package.

Cant wait!

You're just now getting it??? Geez, they take a long time don't they?

It depends on the local distrubution centers. I can get a letter to just about anywhere in the US in a couple of days but it takes 5 to my dad in Napa, 500 miles away because the mail goes to a central PO rather than direct to the city.

I collect (and sell) old postcards. I have some from the early 1900's that are postmarked when they were mailed, and then postmarked when they arrived at their destination. Some were mailed from cities in New York in the morning and arrived in other cities in NY in the afternoon of the same day. Some were mailed on one day and arrived in other states on the next day. That was with no computers, zip codes, or jet planes. I recently received a letter from Atlanta, Georgia which took 2 months and 23 days to arrive. My postmaster said "I guess it got held up somewhere!" Go figure.

Cala, I neglected to ask youto send my stuff to the house. It went to the PO, and Friday by the time I picked up t he notice, they were closed for the weekend.

It is embarassking (as some famous cartoon character said), to send payment to someone like you or someone on Ebay, and to keep thinking, I SWEAR I sent it out a week ago, even if
it has not arrived yet!

Lavanda, glad you got them then. I hope I packed them with enough moisture. It's so hard this time of year, too damp and they mold, too dry and they shrivel up.
I will have to make a note to send things to your house! A few folks here had two addys.

I thought Priority was now $3.85. ?? They don't guarantee 3 day delivery either. I don't use it much anymore....unless it is easier than making it in a package. Jo

You may be able to speed up a priority mail package with delivery confirmation for about 45 cents. If they have to log the progress and report back to you, maybe it will move more smoothly.

basing on personal experiences, george4tax is absolutely right!!! the extra 45 cents for the confirmation pays off. without the delivery confirmation, priority mail do take longer. here are some of my observations:

from Hesperia to New York or Florida takes two days for priority package delivery w/confirmation receipt. for that matter anywhere in the east coast takes 2 days.

from Hesperia to either Hawaii or Los Angeles, priority package is rcvd the following day. whereas packages going to northern Calif. does take 2 days!

from Hesperia to Texas, is a story in itself and i can not figure it out. priority mail to TX takes about 4 days, if not more. go figure...

from Hesperia to Canada is the pits!!! they do not accept priority mail nor insurance. often times the package is either missing or lost! there are times, package delivered somewhere between a month to 2 mos. TX people do not dispare, compare to Canada, u are far luckier :)!

i based these observation/s on the business we do on ebay and plants i share with friends.

When I was little (in the late 1950s) I could mail a letter to my cousin in a town 30 minutes away in the morning and she'd get that afternoon. Now, I mail a check to the hospital in that same town and get harrassed by the billing department because they haven't received it in 3 weeks. They are talking about doing away with the rural post offices because they aren't "cost effective" anymore, but when you send the local mail from Chautauqua County to Buffalo to be sorted, a 90 mile trip, and then send it back to be delivered, another 90 mile trip, it is impossible for any of the local offices to be "cost effective" or efficient! I may buy a pony!

Maybe we should ALL print out several copies of this thread and send them to our representatives in Congress as well as the chief honchos in the post office!

I really don't know that much about the post office rates and delivery times. I know that when my Mom sends me something from Scranton, PA, it usually takes 2 days to get to me here in Columbus, OH. For example, she'll send a letter first class on Monday, and it will be in my mailbox by 10:30am on Wednesday. I think that is fairly exceptional service. As far as packages go, I don't mail boxes or packages -- I use FedEx or UPS. Recently I received a Priority Mail shipment of Water Hyacinth from Badseed. It turned out to be $4.25 in postage (which was okay with me, since I got the package the next day), but if I am going to ship something across the country or out of the country, UPS or FedEx is my choice. UPS standard ground would have been maybe $1.00 more with $100.00 of included insurance, and it would be at the destination in about 3 or 4 days. For out-of-country, the rates will be higher, but I would rather pay the extra money, and know that my delivery will be there in a reasonable amount of time, than sitting and hoping that it makes it!

The post office keep raising the rates and the quality of service keeps dropping. Soon the rates will be just as much as using UPS or FedEx.

Yesterday when I ent to pick up my pkg from cala, I asked by bussy Larry the post-office man about what is the "official" line, and he said depending on where to...abut 2-3 days.

He said anything going to the East coast, especially New York take way longer because of the huge volume to process.
He offered as a solution the confirmation, but didnt suggest it would be faster.

I told him prticular concern is ebay payments and payments for co-ops, and he suggested paypal (!).

Darius, I think you are right, PLUS, file a Postal complaint and attach a hard copy of this thread after we are all finished saying our piece.
attach

In defense of the Postal Sevice;

It's still a purddy dern good bargain when ya think about it! That is if y'all are like me and like to communicate the "old fashioned" way! ;~)

Seeds I sent 1st class to the Netherlands from Alaska on August 13 arrived there on the 20th. I've also had good luck with sending and receiving from Finland. On the other hand, it took over a month to send and receive seeds with Chili. For seeds, this is inconvenient, but waiting such long periods for plants would be unacceptable.

I ordered some seeds from Winslow, Maine on Feb 27/03 & rec'd them on Aug 18/03. After a month I notified them & they resent them & I had them within a week. Who knows where some mail ends up. I know it wasn't opened by customs. Go figure.

Yes, who knows. On the trade with Chili, we both ended up sending seeds again, and they arrived about the same time as the first batch!

I sent a package to my daughter in TN, Parcel Post, Delivery Confirmation. The confirmation showed it delivered in 3 days, but she never got it!

So I called the PO, and they talked to the mail carrier and called me back. She swears she put it in the mail box. Yeah, right. So, that package is lost and there's nothing I can do.

So, I sent another package, Parcel Post, Signature Confirmation. A week later she gets two little cards in her box on the same day saying that the package won't fit in the mailbox, she should go get it at the PO. So, she calls them and asks why they are trying to put this package in the mail box when she knows she has to sign for it. The PO lady told her that just cause it says Signature Confirmation, that doesn't always mean some one has to sign for it. HUH????

They delivered the package the following day. She signed for it.

Go figure ...
Meanwhile, our pokey little rural PO seems to clock along just fine. Just don't put your letter in the outside box at the PO, it'll go to Lafayette and come back. Stick in in your own mailbox with the flag up, and it gets where it's going.

Cheri'