Post office fail....

[Bosco685]

I mailed a priority package to Canada a few days ago. I have no idea what the clerk was doing but she was working on the computer for almost fifteen minutes.

I was the only one in the PO when she started but there were eight people on line by the time I finished.

 

[GACollectibles]

Thought it was more teriyaki

 

uh-uh, it's more towbells.

[8milemax]

I mailed a priority package to Canada a few days ago. I have no idea what the clerk was doing but she was working on the computer for almost fifteen minutes.

I was the only one in the PO when she started but there were eight people on line by the time I finished.

 

Priority mail going to Canada or any other foreign country you need a custom form 2976a filled out, then the clerk has to put all that information in the computer before it gets mailed out, those are time consuming. Customs use to do that but they make the Post office do it now.

[silverweb]

This mess has happened to me before too! Notice the little stamp reads "Received in damaged condition. Nope, delivered in damaged condition!

 

 

[Peter Loves Gwen]

That's a shame to see that Frank, but I am glad the contents survived.

 

I'm a rural carrier and I've gone through or heard of most of what has been mentioned. The "WE CARE" bag or a stamping on the article is a way to tell the customer something happened and we're sorry for that. The "RECEIVED IN DAMAGED CONDITION" stamp is also supposed to be accompanied by a post mark, that tells you that the damage happened just before that point, or by that employee. Not everyone in the PO does that properly though, I think that usually gets passed on to the carriers or clerks just before the carriers.

 

I have dropped a letter or parcel, or a few in my time, almost never in water though. If anything gets wet, I do my best to wipe it off fast and not drop anything else. I have spoken with customers dozens of times about parcels etc that I received damaged(and I got stamped and dated), to express my concern on behalf of the USPS. I cannot ever tell them how the damage happened, other than a guess like mentioned here. I mail and receive fragile comic books, I understand people's concerns.

 

That parcel looks like it was stacked among others and they all got wet. I would expect that is more likely in the transporting between offices, not by a carrier, unless they were incompetent. Rain can get into a PO vehicle but it doesn't make anything that wet. That parcel was very wet, and the weight of others crushed it evidently.

 

I have learned something from this thread though, seeing that parcel and the luck that it survived. I think an actual bag just inside a parcel would be wise for comics, the CGC cases are not water proof at all. I'd use those USPS bags if they didn't mention damage in the message. I'll find something else.

 

I also note that this parcel Frank got is the big #1095 box. That is about 2" longer than the other four similar boxes, and that extra length helps a lot for any impacts to the ends. I don't like using any of the other boxes, except that I use the #1092 box which fits inside the #1095 box.

 

FYI, for international shipping, try to do that online. You can save most of the time for the window clerks by doing that at home. They still have to enter the address etc, but the customs stuff is easier that way for them, and quicker. You save on postage with a small online discount, and up to each country's insurance limit, you can pay that online too.

 

Often the Express Mail International is very close in price to Priority Mail International, if the parcel has some good value(insurance). I sent two to the UK recently, and the price difference was about $6 for one and $3 for the other. I used the Express Mail box #1093 for those, which BTW are identical in size to the #1095 Priority Mail box. I used a #1092 inside of those too.

 

Okay, now to go find some cheap plastic bags.

[jessebrook1]

I work at UPS loading two Freight trucks and two package cars. I load about 1200 packages a day. The way i see some boxes treated scares the living crud out of me.

 

I find the reason most packages are damaged or heck even destroyed is the way UPS transports the packages from Tractor trailers to the package cars. They are all put in colored bins and packages are just stacked on top of each other, just destroying some boxes. Packages fall out of the cages and get ripped open by the boxline.

 

 

[Peter Loves Gwen]

That's the inside 411 you never hear of about the shippers, how things work between the start and finish. The public only sees or hears of the place that receives articles, or the person delivering them to the door. Most of the problems are happening between those two.

 

Here's a case in point, pictures shipped by photo processing companies by mail. Do you know how those are packaged, the flimsy envelope they all come in? They are nothing but an envelope about 5"x8" in size, with no packing material inside, none. That sounds innocent and simple, no need right, they are just thick letters yes? Wrong, in the post office some very not smart person decides that they are fragile, so they get tossed into the parcel stream. I see about one of those per week, always in the parcel hampers, and never as a letter or flat. How smart is it to have pictures within non protective envelopes, tossed in among parcels which all get sorted and tossed upon each other? That's how the decisions are made deep within the PO, illogically.

 

The parcels are the last place you want fragile items. Unfortunately about 20-25% of all of the items in the parcels, they are not parcels. I have to sift through and dig those out every day, to get them up onto my desk where I can place them in the mail, the safe place for them. Letters and flats do not get tossed or thrown, or dropped onto each other haphazardly in large containers. Letters and flats can be kept together in their small shapes and minimize damage in handling. That makes sense, yet that's not how things are handled at receiving locations. Those people are making decisions based on how they feel personally about placing those odd letters and flats, they toss them into the parcels way way too much. Regards,

[Bio-Rupp]

Why was Bio having a debate with the thing? Did he buy something from him? No he didn't. Bio had no reason to be in it. That was the point I was trying to make with Bio, just like I had no reason to be in it.

 

In all fairness 8mile, when Thing disrespected the CGC Board rules... the very rules that make the CGC boards a safe place for you & me... I and everyone else had EVERY reason to be "in it". Just saying.