U.S POSTAL SVC. Is mail service deteriorating for you too?

[1Old Pro]

I mail quite a few letters and envelopes. Over the past 10-20 years I thought service was good, letters got there in reasonable time, nothing even got lost.

Over the past few months the postal service has lost a few pieces (never received) and it's taking up to two weeks for a letter to get from upstate NY to Boston, NYC, Ohio, etc. These letters used to take only 3 days or 4 at the longest?

I'm curious if this is isolated or if other people have noticed deteriorating service.

[muawiyah]

You must have missed it but there is a war on. This meant massive disruptions in air service - which works to rapidly move your bills into your hands for quick payment. There was also the Anthrax Attack which continues to keep closed one of the major mail processing facilities - Brentwood Station in DC, and also disrupted other postaloperations.

Again, there is a war on, to a degree inside the United States this time, and this has undoubtedly caused delays in mail service.

By the way, we also undertook massive operations inside Afghanistan to wipe out AlQeada and the Taliban. Do you have further questions?

[1Old Pro]

DELAYS ARISING FROM PROCESS USED TO REMOVE POSSIBLE ANTHRAX FROM MAIL
Two months after postal officials began using electron beam irradiation to cleanse mail of possible anthrax, the process has burned, discolored and delayed letters, sending officials searching for other ways to protect the nation's mail. Irradiation, which has already cost the financially strapped U.S. Postal Service millions of dollars, has proved to be far slower than expected, and has left some congressional staff complaining that their mail is yellow, brittle, stuck together and has an unpleasant odor.

"It is not as easy to use as we anticipated," said U.S. Postal Service spokesman Jim Mruk. "There have been unforeseen circumstances, and basically, that has led us to believe we need to look at something else other than irradiation. It isn't going to be enough."

Postal officials are spending $3.9 million in the coming months to use irradiation facilities in New Jersey and Ohio, and have agreed to pay $40 million to Titan Industries to buy eight irradiation machines, with an option to buy 12 more. They also are looking at other methods to avoid future bioterror threats to the mail, including machines that could detect biological hazards in mail and systems to track all senders of mail. Postal officials say they never intended to irradiate all U.S. mail anyway, just a select portion.

After anthrax-laced letters were discovered in October, millions of pieces of mail were sequestered and trucked to irradiation facilities to be sanitized. New mail addressed to government offices in Washington continues to be sent for irradiation. The process-including long truck rides to and from the plants-is slow, said Dan Mihalko, a U.S. Postal Inspection Service official. The Lima, Ohio, facility, for example, can sanitize only two truckloads of mail a day, even as new government mail continues arriving each day, he said.

Congressional aides said they only recently have started receiving a "trickle" of letters from mid-October, when the mail was first sequestered, and new mail hasn't come at all. Letters to Congress have an added delay after irradiation because a government contractor slits open the corner of every letter to check for evidence of powders.

One new option being considered in the sending of letters is making the process less anonymous, postal officials said. People might be asked to show identification when buying stamps or might buy stamps from kiosks where video cameras captured their images.

[deport]

Time for a posted increase, don'tcha see? Then things will improve....

[Sunshine55]

It's not just you. I work in the Payment Research Department for the company that handles the online banking transactions for 900 banks in the US, plus the Yahoo, MSN, and USPS bill pay services as well. Many of the payments we make on behalf of our customers go out as checks because we are limited by the Federal Reserve as to how much money we can transmit electronically over a 24-hour period. The amount of cases we have pertaining to lost/late payments is STAGGERING, with no end in sight. There appears to be no other explanation for it either, other than poor service by the USPS. The worst part is, we guarantee our service, and when these customers incur late fees through no fault of their own, our company eats them when the merchant is unwilling to waive them. At first, I blamed it on closed post office facilities, but it seems that the problem is worse the farther west the subscribers are.

[1Old Pro]

This meant massive disruptions in air service

I haven't noticed any MASSIVE disruptions, just a few cancelled flights.

[cinFLA]

Priority mail: FL to CA Oct. 9 days Nov. 13 days

[1Old Pro]

The amount of cases we have pertaining to lost/late payments is STAGGERING,

Interesting. I didn't think the delays were wholly caused by antrax screening etc. because I believe only letters to the elite elected officials are being screened.

[Sunshine55]

Let me rephrase that....At first I blamed it on the postal facilities being CLOSED.

[1Old Pro]

Priority mail: FL to CA Oct. 9 days Nov. 13 days

WOW, I thought priority mail was 2-3 days guaranteed.

[Orual]

A reprint of an article I requested from Georgetown University Library in DC was mailed to me in NY on January 9 and arrived on January 21. The Manuscripts Librarian told me that all mail coming from DC was being delayed because of the anthrax scare there.

[pubmom]

You are not alone, and now you must even watch priority mail.

They are still looking for a bill that I mailed out December 21 using Priority. It only had to go to Baltimore, and I live in Pa!
Not only did it cost over $3 to send the darn thing, I had to to stop payment on my check. My husband said there were a line of people at the post office when he went to file my claim with similar complaints.

[Orual]

Priority mail: FL to CA Oct. 9 days Nov. 13 days

Priority Mail from CA to NY: 10 days. Christmas card mailed from CA to NY: 3 days. Next day Post Office Express mail from NY to NM: 4 days. (getting a refund on that one).

[Sunshine55]

Also, keep in mind that there was mail on both flights that crashed into the WTC, and if you online bank with Bank of America, their HQ was located there, which I'm sure has caused a flurry of problems as well.

[Dukie]

Received in yesterday's mail a bill payment which I mailed two days ago. The mail was destined for a collection center in another state. Correct postage, stamp cancelled at the big city mail handling center, destination address showing correctly through the window in the envelope. No rubber stamp marks or indications of anything wrong on the envelope. It seems multiple snafus had to occur to get this mail back to me. Going to ask the local postmaster to explain.

[magoo_70115]

This is really the time to propose not the elimination but the gutting (personnel-wise) of the U.S. Postal Service. Instead of the kind of feet on the street delivery service, such as it is now, the Post Office should provide an email account, email machine and printer for each household in the country. The cost of this would be huge in total but the unit cost per home would be peanuts. The debt service and operating costs of this delivery system would be paid by a user fee for each piece of mail - limited to 5 cents per missive and paid by the sender.

The mail and delivery would be encrypted, etc. for security purposes - use of the receiver would be by finger-print, eye scan, whatever. Now is the time for a clinical discussion of the costs and benefits which would derive from such a system. I realize that a lot of the political whores in congress and elsewhere would scream because of the labor issues and the unions but it is the only logical system to replace the antiquated, labor intensive and eternally escalating system we have now. For the record, I have given up drugs.

[CityGirl]

In 2001: mailed a certified letter from one zip code in Savannah, GA to another zip code in Savannah. It took 8 days to arrive. Also in 2001, mailed a certified letter to an office about 10 blocks away from our office. It never arrived!

[1Old Pro]

Perhaps the USPS wants everyone to pay $3.95 a letter instead of 34 cents?

Priority Mail Flat-Rate Envelope

$3.95, regardless of weight or destination, for matter sent in a Priority Mail Flat-Rate envelope provided by the Postal Service.

    The Zone Chart Program provides a 1 page zone chart for your origin ZIP Code.  This 1 page zone chart is used to determine Priority Mail rates in Domestic Mail Manual R100.8 or Ratefold (Notice 123).

 

[toddst]

Service is deterioriating IMHO. What's interesting to me is the local USPS staff who actually deal with the public (my letter carrier, for one) are very concerned about the public being unhappy with USPS service and using UPS for packages, for example. They see a decline in the volume of mail and packages, partly caused by email, online transactions and very aggressive package services - FEDX and UPS.

My carrier is anxious to make it to full retirement before there is a big downsizing and/or a further decline in their volume of business.

Most of the problems have little to do with 9-11 but are systemic and employees know it.

[1Old Pro]

It never arrived!

Send it "Registered" and insured next time :)