USPS delivery times ?

[terracore]

Early on they announced they would be delaying shipping items that weren't "essential". Every "non essential" item I bought was immediately given an estimated delivery time of 29 days (I guess so they could say it was less than a month?). I needed a clear tarp for our farm and the company that makes it ONLY sells on Amazon. I asked them to make an exception because it was going to delay our food production. No dice. Food apparently isn't essential unless it comes out of a can.

[randomq]

Nothing prime about Prime anymore. And I usually order more than $35 at a time so would get free shipping anyway... Hmm.....

[terracore]

I looked at cancelling my prime for the same reason. I rarely watch any of their videos etc and wasn't seeing any benefit. Then I crunched the numbers and if you spend around $2,200 or with the prime visa with 5% cash back it pays for the prime membership. Sometimes they have promotions where one can get up to 15% back. We buy a lot of stuff for our farm there because it's cheaper, sometimes substantially so.

As I understand it, next month starts the daily Amazon Air flights to Kona. If their past business model is a guide it will be followed by a distribution center and eventually ground delivery. It would be worth it to get my packages delivered to house as opposed to waiting at USPS. But who knows when that will happen.

[dan_c]

I was having a similar problem.  For a few weeks it seemed like the Amazon tracking and USPS tracking were very much not in sync.  I had a number of orders that showed late or lost.  I anticipated that there was an issue and didn't put in for replacement shipments because I didn't want to bother going to the post office to return the "extras."

So... the things I ordered did arrive late, though one was actually lost.  Not very Prime like at all... and chatting with a bot to be transferred to a human overseas only made things worse and I was given credit for what I had received and not for the lost item.  I got reminder emails to return the credited item though I wanted to keep it.  Eventually I got credit for the missing item and recharged for the one I "failed" to return.

It's hard not to use Amazon, there are things you cannot get locally.  I would love it if the big retailers here would provide a ship-to-store option (like Home Depot does for a few items) so that we can bring in items normally stocked on the Mainland but not here.  I don't mind waiting a few weeks when I'm expecting to wait a few weeks.

[terracore]

Yay! The USPS "resolved" my problem!

"Thank you for taking the time to notify us of your experience. Your USPS® Service Request has been marked as resolved.

I do apologize for your Priority Express International package not reaching Australia. At this point since I did not get a response back from Los Angeles, I would suggest you do an International Inquiry, you do have 90 days from the mailing date to do this."

So they sent an email to themselves, didn't get a response, closed my case, didn't bother to even check the tracking information showing it was coming FROM Australia not TO Australia, and then referred me to a different inquiry which is only for shipments leaving the US.

Can't make this stuff up.

Maybe I'll get better luck the third time! Or more than likely, the process is simply designed to frustrate people until they give up.

[1@3_aBc]

I have curtailed much of my shopping, local and online.

The first signs of trouble several weeks ago, probably in March or April, was when one item took almost 3 weeks extra to arrive from a California stop on the route.

Since then, Amazon has been flying into Honolulu regularly, then shipping by USPS to B.I.
USPS from Honolulu has been sporadic and slow, taking a week or more to arrive here after arriving in Honolulu.
Inter island flights have been reduced, YB had it's screw-up, and so on.

I was notified about a week ago that an item from Australia had been delivered to the U.S., not sure if it went to the mainland, or is in Hawaii to go through customs.
It could take awhile.

My computer desk chair is in need of being replaced.
It may take a while, better get it ordered soon if I want to get it in this lifetime.

EDIT:
have also been thinking about canceling Prime.
They are beginning to refuse to ship some Prime items to Hawaii.
It seems to be happening more and more often.

[terracore]

"They are beginning to refuse to ship some Prime items to Hawaii."

I have in the past contacted customer support (via chat) and in some instances they have instructed me to place the order from another seller on Amazon that will ship to me and they refund the difference in price + shipping. About 3/4 the time the refund never materializes but they have always fixed it after a second contact. It's a PITA but I could tell the customer service reps were getting creative. In one instance they said because of a "policy violation" they had to attribute the refund to a different order. I don't care how we get from A to B so long as we get there.

There are some things they just won't ship to Hawaii under any circumstance because it's not worth the money they lose in shipping it. Some examples are greenhouses and certain server racks. For both commodities the work around was to order from "Amazon Warehouse Deals" which although part of Amazon is run like a separate company with different policies and I've rarely found an item they won't ship here (though they do frequently require a UPS capable address, no PO Boxes unless it's the post office street address). Warehouse deals are items that have been damaged, returned, or are very close to their expiration date and are usually priced quite attractively. Often times the description will say something like the exterior box is damaged but the product appears brand new. For the server rack, I couldn't find anything wrong with it. It had a minor scratch but it appeared to be from it's shipment to me. For the greenhouse it was obvious it was a return and it was because it was missing hardware required for it's assembly. I contacted customer service and they instructed me to buy the hardware locally and that they would reimburse me. I got the refund the same day. I had to email copy of receipt. We buy "warehouse deals" all the time for years and in the time I believe we have only received 3 items we had to ship back. One was a power strip that didn't work, another was supposed to be a livestock waterer but they sent the top to a grain feeder and the bottom of the waterer (two components of different products that don't go together, not even from same manufacturer). The other one was a chicken feeder that was leaking rusty parts through a hole in the box, I just taped up the hole and sent it back without bothering to inspect it.

Unrelated but relevant- I recently bought a "refurbished" desktop computer for about $150. A comparable new computer would have been about $500. From the other customer reviews I gathered that they were lease returns and part of the lease deal is that the original hard drives are destroyed so they put new or used hard drives in with a licensed copy of Windows 10 installed. The unit showed up looking brand new but running diagnostics I was able to determine the hard drive had about 6 years of use on it and the 16GB of RAM were from a company called "Sesame" (bland Chinese crap) I had never heard of. Also the RAM was installed in incorrect configuration (single channel instead of dual channel) meaning it was running slower than it was designed to. Too amateur a mistake for a computer refurbisher to do so I speculated that they did it on purpose. I reinstalled memory in correct configuration and after a few weeks one of the memory modules failed. The company that sold the computers was based in Canada and said their warranty was only valid in the 48 states (not stipulated anywhere in listing). I contacted Amazon customer service, it took a few times actually, because they were at first trying to get seller to make good on their warranty, and then they only wanted to replace the defective module. I had to get somebody in their "tech support" to agree/understand that you can't mix modules that way and that I would need two identical modules from the same manufacturer. Eventually they agreed to refund me $80, the cost of two name-brand Crucial memory modules. They didn't want either one of the Sesame modules sent back. As for the 6-year old hard drive, it was a legitimate component being that it was a refurbished system, but the computer was a replacement for my computer that died and I didn't want the hard drive anyway, I just wanted a new computer to put my old hard drive in. Fortunately with Windows 10 you can move a hard drive from any Windows 10 machine to another and it will boot up and run without any grief. Not like previous versions where you had to reinstall the OS from scratch and manually re-add everything from your old machine. I could have skipped the extra steps and just had a different computer shipped to me which is what Amazon originally wanted to do but I didn't want crap memory modules that only work long term when installed in wrong/slow configuration. Also the CPU in the machine I received was faster than the one advertised in the listing.

[terracore]

Update from the USPS...

After the above email I hit reply and explained that the package was coming from Australia and not TO Australia.

Their reply: Although the USPS lost the shipment somewhere after LAX, "The seller is the only one that can file a claim and the sender needs to file the claim with the Australian Post."

Deflection #3! The tracking info clearly shows the USPS was in possession of the item when it disappeared and after unsuccessfully deflecting the attention from themselves after their incredibly lame excuse of "resolving" the issue by not replying to their own email, now they have passed the buck to the originating postal authority who successfully put it into the USPS custody after clearing US customs.

(Note: "Claim" implies attempting to seek some form of restitution, i.e. an insurance claim, this via the "missing mail" system which has nothing to do with processing insurance claims: defection #4)

Well played USPS.... well played.

Is this the dead end? Stay tuned! The shipper filed a missing mail piece inquiry with the Australian Post as the USPS suggested. Now it is an "International Incident". Two Bureaucratic Behemoths have entered Postaldome. Two may enter, but only one can leave!

(either way I'm pretty sure I get unfavorably screwed in the end).

[Kiana]

For us, it's consistently taking longer for all types of mailing. I'm going to start mailing my bill payments earlier than I used to and allow a few more days. I think part of the problem is due to the big cut back of transportation due to the Covid-19. I rely on shipping for my business and USPS Priority used to be super fast and my customers loved me. I've got one out currently that is still "in transit" and it's been 8 days, not the usual 3-4. International is a disaster and I'm having to stop international sales. I have two that shipped in May and they are still tagged as "left the US mail center for the destination". Luckily, my customers in Sweden and Poland are understanding and patient. So far.

And, I don't think it will get any better, rather worse. I follow an E-Commerce blog and they had an article about a new "policy" that the "new" head of the USPS (is that the Postmaster General?) has implemented. His letter to the employees was posted on Facebook. "No more overtime." And, he basically said that if you don't finish you will have to leave the mail until the next day. We can all see how this will snowball. Of course this guy has never worked for the postal or any shipping company, another wise appointment by our "leader". Our mail will become like some third world country. If I can wax pessimistic, an inefficient mail system for mail in voting for the November election would serve him well.

[eightfingers2.0]

Problem with some bills (Spectrum are you listening?) is they only give you nine or ten days from the date you receive the statement until it’s due. We send in payments the day we receive the bills.
I’m thinking about a different way of paying, but I don’t trust any of them enough for the “auto pay” option.