The old adage, "Shake, rattle and roll". 'Shake' it first, does it 'rattle', yup, 'roll' it on the floor. Anything fall out ? Damaged send it back to the customer, minus what 'fell out'. "Sorry from the United States Postal Service."
I've only gotten about 7 items in body bags in the last 5 years. 3 of those were magazines or catalogs where the cover pages clearly caught in a processing machine somehow. Considering the volume of mail that I get from the USPS, that's an amazingly low goof-up rate. And I'm impressed that not only did they admit responsibility, but they often take extraordinary measures to still get a package to me. Lately, I've had another issue though. In the last month, I've received 3 court notices that took more than 30 days to reach me. This is a problem when the notices include 20 day deadlines to respond. The court takes the attitude that "we put it in the mail on time" so I'm just SOL on having missed the deadline. I'm still trying to figure out how to remedy the situation on 2 of the cases I'm involved in (the third arrived on the day a response was due, and I was able to bang something out). In case you're wondering, I sue telemarketers for fun and to fund most of my coin purchases - that's why I have so much court correspondence.
George, it sounds like you have a black hole in Texas with the Postal Service. Find out where your processing facility and District office are located, then file a complaint with USPS Consumer Affairs in that District. Also, watch the dates as that will help solve the problem.
The first and only time I decided to ship some "heavy" packages to a buyer I was afraid I would have to open a claim. (didn't have to in the end, but it was scary.) Buyer purchased quite a lot of coins from me, and I split this purchase into 3 boxes, 1 large flat rate box and 2 medium flat rate boxes. The large box weighs around 50 pounds and the other 2 roughly 30-35 each. (mind you, they allow up to 70 lbs. as the limit for Priority Mail...) I made sure my item was properly packed. I used up nearly 3 full rolls of bubble wrapping and an entire roll of strapping tape for these 3 boxes. (about $15 worth in supplies at USPS). So chances here of anything coming loose or stolen is near zero, so I thought. I ship these items out, they leave Oregon and somewhere in the middle of this trek, all 3 of my boxes scan "VISIBLE DAMAGE" as I checked out the usps tracking page to see their progress. Luckily for me I insured the most valuable box out of the 3, just in case the buyer doesn't receive all of it. Thankfully he did. I was told the boxes looked extremely banged up and there were openings. lol But the item was received in full and he was satisfied. Imagine what kind of disaster this could have turned out to be if I hadn't packed so much bubble wrapping and used as much tape? Hmmmm.. They need to handle their packages better. Or here's another question, why have such a ridiculously high limit for weight if you're just going to batter them around to hell? (my heaviest box was about 20 lbs. below their limit) I've also googled my issue to see if other people had problems sending or receiving heavy flat rate boxes, and there are other horror stories told out there. On the other hand, when buying/selling simple and light items, everything goes fine. I have had about a 99% success rate with USPS as far as small items go. But I guess I'll try to avoid ever shipping or receiving anything too heavy for the average person to lift. To finalize my post; I never recycle old/used boxes for shipping my items out. I picked up fresh stacks of USPS boxes the same day they went out.
I bought a specimen fractional in early November a few years ago. Seller shipped in a normal envelope with tracking and insurance. I received the note in late February the next year. It got lost in the Phoenix sorting facility for 4 months before surfacing and proceeding to its destination. Was very happy to receive it and appreciated the fact that when it was found it was sent on its way. I use media mail for books on a regular basis and have never had a problem. I pack it right and my customers always appreciate that no matter how it's handled that the contents are well protected. For collectibles items should be shipped the way the sender would like to receive it as if it was important to them.
Started an investigation - the local office manager marked it as 'closed' without telling _me_ anything.
I got a letter from the USPS (after asking for *something* I can show to the court explaining the missed deadline) and they sent me what boils down to a form letter saying "We're sorry that this did not meet our usual timeliness standards."
Did the package have tracking? The tracking history can be found on their web site. Just print it out and any court should accept that as proof.
Yes, it had tracking. The court only cares that they mailed it on the day that they claim they mailed it (the statute only specifies that the bill has to be paid within 20 days of the bill being sent). One judge (in the lower court) refused to further my appeal because he lacked jurisdiction once 20 days had passed. The clerks at the county court are refusing to schedule any hearings on the case because they returned the file to the lower court. A catch 22 that I haven't unraveled yet, to be sure. I wonder if I had mailed in payment and could present proof that the USPS took forever to deliver it that the situation would be handled differently. Just for fun, I got the full 98 page file document copied from the lower court and tried to fax it to the county court along with a motion requesting a Special Exceptions Hearing. The fax line on their header turned out to be out of service, but when I called in and asked for their correct fax line, they gave me a different number (one digit off, so I'm assuming it's just a typo that they don't care to fix). I followed up a few days later, and was told that a) they didn't get any faxes from me, b) they received 101 pages of fax in no discernible order, and c) they don't accept motions via fax. I guess they really have the A Team working over the holiday season, right? So, I copied the document, drove to the county court (half an hour away), and tried to manually file it. They kept me waiting at the window for almost an hour while occasionally coming back to tell me "We don't know what to do with this motion; we don't have a file to put it into since the case was returned to the lower court." Finally, I said "You're right - you're absolutely not qualified to make a determination on a rule of law. I'm leaving this here for you to file on my case and look forward to hearing from the Court Coordinator about scheduling a hearing." I received the whole stack of documents in the mail yesterday, returned to me with a note saying "Here's the documents you accidentally left at our office." GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR...
This is hilarious. I'd do this if I didn't work full time. Back on the topic though, machine sorting is the whole reason I didn't pull the trigger on a token I've been looking for on eBay for a while. The seller doesn't usually handle coins, so I'm not sure how or in what condition it would arrive.
Different subject, but same topic. I had a Laserdisc box set of Jurassioc Park get lost somewhere in Allen Park, MI sorting hub. The seller refunded me and I declaired it lost. But a day before Christmas, an entire month after it went missing just 100 miles from my home, there it was on my doorstep. The USPS repacked it in their own box, a special box made for LP records, and with a note inside. I looked up the tracking # again and it turned out it got sent from Michigan all the way to Georgia to their damaged and lost mail hub and they repacked it for me and sent it back up. There was no damage to the item at all, but they included the original packaging with the box, and the reason they couldn't deliver it was somehow going from the great plains to michigan, the face of the envelope had gotten abraised and torn or wet, and the address and postage paid stickers came off. Luckily because the seller had the receipt in the package, with both our addresses on it, it was easy for them to get it home. Often times, the damage is due to seller mishaps to cut corners and maximize money. Like putting a 2 lb. school textbook in a cardboard envelope. Don't always place blame on the USPS. One person doesn't hand-deliver each and every package onto each piece of machinery. Especially on the holidays when things get overloaded, you got a lot of packages going through at one time. There could be a 60 lb. computer on top of your purchase, or if the envelope catches in the rollers on the conveyor and gets jammed up.