US Post Office Warning

If the USPS has no signature then you win. It may take awhile but clearly they must have a signature or they pay you. It's sad you're getting the run around, I'd put an end to that rather quickly.

I won a Large Cent on ebay Oct. 27. I still have not received it. All it says in tracking is "Picked up in Danbury,CT"

My local Clerk told me it could take up to 3 weeks to California. Really?

It will take quite a bit of patience... believe it or not, ebay's customer service is FANTASTIC in comparison to that of the USPS, I made a 3 and half hour drive on the phone with USPS and spent the entire time with them telling me there was nothing they could do about their mistake and it was policy that they could not do anything about it... I would start back from the bottom with ebay and make it clear you are NOT going to accept this situation.

Vermonensium, your situation with the large cent you are waiting for does not surprise me, CT seems to be USPS's Bermuda Triangle...

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestions.

Vermontensium, I'm sorry to hear that you still didn't receive your coin.

In the past year, I have experienced abnormally more problems with the USPS including items I sell and ship - for example one item I sent to a buyer who lives 2 towns away from me (10 minutes from me by car) in the same county...the USPS took that parcel half way across the country into different states before returning it back to my county and being delivered days later.

Is it just me or does anyone else also think that the USPS's service has perhaps gotten slightly worse in recent years?

As far as USPS service I have few problems other than an occasional slow delivery.

I print my own barcoded shipping labels and prepay postage. I use the SCAN form so all items are downloaded with an acceptance scan at my local post office.

I think the longest I've had a package go AWOL was for 7 days in Cleveland OH earlier this year. I figure it fell off a sorting conveyor or was left in the bottom of a bin. It eventually showed up.

All in all they do a pretty good job for me so I'm happy with them. Others have different opinions.

It used to be for items over $250 they had to be shipped signature confirmation and if the signature wasn't obtained then it was not considered delivered and the buyer prevailed. Under $250 it just had to be delivery confirmation and if the slip was left the seller prevailed. But the threshold for signature confirmation has been raised to I think $750. Anything under that just has to be delivery confirmation. Yes the seller did send it with signature confirmation but since it was under the threshold and only needed delivery confirmation the slip being left satisfied ebay's requirements and the seller prevailed.

On the other hand NOT getting the signature SHOULD still leave the post office on the hook as just leaving slips or the package without getting a signature does not prove delivery and they should still have to pay the insurance. but you make still have to follow westernsky's suggestion and get your congressman involved to force them to pay up.



But they only have to buy signature confirmation if it is above the threshold value, below that delivery confirmation or a slip being left is all they require as proof of delivery.

If you REALLY want to make SURE it gets there, Registered is the only way to go. But it is more expensive for items under around $800. Over about $800, Registered is actually cheaper, but it is slower.

Thank you Conder101...good info.

The shipper/seller has still not received a response to the appeal of the insurance claim denial...it's a month today that he mailed the appeal form / papers.

I am reluctant to turn to the government at this time to try to intervene on my behalf. I will wait for the answer to the appeal before contacting my Congressman. I'm hoping that the USPS does the right thing for the first time on this lost parcel...it's been a headache dealing with their B.S.

Remember your congressman is interested in votes. I have turned to mine before and had a major problem solved very quickly (although the US mint was not cooperative on another incident).

I found from dealing with another "government" business - the mint - that the customer support reps are just there as a buffer to keep you from what they call "HQ," and HQ is another sham to keep you from an actual no-response policy when the issue is major. I had someone at the HQ level admit the truth of this when I "interpreted" the clever wording she was supposed to reply for what it really meant.

I have no doubt the PO is structured in a similar manner. They might be told to resist the one filing the complaint,and hope the person they wronged takes the loss, before actually working favorably with you.


The USPS, like any government run business is inefficient and failing (think SS, medicare etc.). They were the ones complaining about losing so much business to the internet when email became popular yet:

1. Thanks to ordering online, ebay, Amazon, etc. the volume of packages worth dollars (more profit to them) increased phenomenally when they lost envelope traffic (worth maybe .20 at theme email became popular) decreased.

2. They also are the ones complaining about slow business while it simultaneously takes them more time to handle the "less business" Logic dictates when there is not as work much to do, then the smaller workload gets done at a faster rate. If things do slow down with a smaller work load, then quality should go up because there is more time to make sure things are done properly.


So don't give up! Camp out on the doorstep if you have to!

And if you can present your congressman with where the local PO said they made a mistake by leaving the package w.out signature, this should nail them to the wall.