delbiker1 

I have gotten to the point that I am quite leery of ordering anything that has to be shipped via USPS. In the past 3 months, I have 3 items lost, one never found and two pending. Also, numerous items that have taken weeks or months to arrive. I am presently awaiting a partial 6600 groupset that was scheduled for delivery a couple of weeks ago. Tracking shows the package arriving in Newcastle DE on 1/31/21 at 12:07am, and that it has not moved since. I submitted a search form with USPS and contacted the southern Delaware distribution center to try to locate the package, but have not heard back from them in a week. I had been looking for 6600 components for a while, found what I wanted in very good shape and at a good price, and now cannot locate them.

I also have an article of clothing that, according to tracking, has been sitting in Greensboro, NC since the morning of Feb. 8th. It was scheduled to be delivered yesterday. Not a big deal if that is lost. I will just request a refund.
Back in December, I ordered a Shimano compatible free hub for Campy Zonda's, it never arrived and CRC in England declared the item lost and issued me a refund. The tracking on that was good until it reached USPS and then it disappeared.

The tracking for USPS seems to be very sporadic in being helpful finding packages. In general, trying to get help from the USPS is an exercise in frustration.

indyfabz

I haven’t got normal mail in 3-4 days. Something I ordered from Amazon that was delivered by the USPS, however, arrived as scheduled.

GlennR

I have a home based business where I restore car parts. I've shipped over 6000 items in the past 20 years so that actually 12,000 items received and shipped back... with only one stolen. I ship all over the USA and international including all of Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and Australia. The one stolen item was delivered and stolen off the stoop of the the house and verified by security camera. I'm still shipping 3-4 a week so that's actually 6-8.

A few times there were rather long delays where USPS Priority has taken over a week and a few times international were over a month late... usually due to customs paperwork.

USPS offers a great service and is much more economical than UPS. But if you're concerned then use UPS since they have better tracking.

Koyote

I've never had any problems with USPS until recently...But I (and a couple family members) have had some pretty astounding delays in the last couple months.

Anyone who's followed the USPS' woes understands that they stem from maliciously poor leadership; unfortunately, the current Postmaster General can't be unilaterally removed by the President. Until the situation is sorted out, I am shipping via UPS and FedEx.

Trakhak

There's a long USPS thread currently running on the major bass guitar and upright bass website. The OP in that thread complained about problems with a USPS delivery and implored everyone to boycott the USPS. Several hundred posts later, it's clear that the majority of people posting have had much better luck with USPS than with UPS or FedEx.

Several people in that thread also pointed out that, in addition to the COVID-related problems affecting all shipping companies, the current U.S. Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy, who got the job because he was a Republican fundraiser, has instituted a number of changes seemingly designed to cripple the USPS. Under the circumstances, it's amazing that so many people reported having less trouble with USPS than with the privately owned competitors.

indyfabz

A friend of mine got a Christmas card earlier this week. It was mailed in early December.

ARider2

I ordered some refurbished bike parts through ebay and the seller used USPS. This was before Christmas and what should have taken less than a week took several weeks. Fortunately I was not in a rush to get the parts. US Postmaster DeJoy was installed as Postmaster General with a mission to destroy the USPS and he is doing a great job of it.

base2 

Yep. DeJoy.
But it's also a handful of other well known causes. Not the least of which is intentional defunding of our institutions to carve out market space for for-profit companies.

The USPS has almost zero control of it's future, it's rates, or it's business. It suffers at the whims of congress.

The anti-tax people don't want functioning institutions or love America enough to put their money where their mouths are. It's a shame really.

I waited nearly 2 weeks for a power meter from the East coast. DHL from Germany (on another continent!) took a few days for some Rohloff parts.

The decline is everywhere. Our institutions have been being defunded for the better part of 4 decades.

Hiro11

I have absolutely had these issues lately. USPS tracking is totally broken: stuff shows up days later than expected or days earlier. I've had five different hings in the last six months just not show up at all. It's particularly bad if you're getting stuff for overseas. Anything being sent from Europe via DHL is totally unpredictable. Stuff from Asia is even worse.

I've never seen anything like this before.

Some of that might not be USPS's fault, apparently there's a huge container ship backup at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach:
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/ne...ip-traffic-jam

guachi

Under DeJoy's "leadership" on time delivery performance by the USPS has crashed. It's not your imagination.

unterhausen

Okay, not sure why this is in General Cycling and it's all political anyway, so belongs in P&R. Don't need to deal with people reporting it. Closing