Tracking for my two-day Priority Mail package that took a week to arrive
Remember my fiasco with the Post Office last holiday season? This year they’re a lot better. They’ve updated their tracking tool, so you know what’s actually happening in their system rather than simply that it is “in transit”.
Using this tool I was able to determine that just 1 of my 7 packages arrived in two days as printed on the “2-Day Priority Mail” box. (To be fair, the clerk at my post office said it’s “two to three days”.) One just arrived today, after a week on the road. We’re getting there.
The package as it finally arrived, not a little the worse for wear…
6 weeks after shipping to the wrong address, I got a text from the people who live at that address. They had the package, delivered this past weekend. A few hours later, it was finally united with the intended recipient. The report: most contents were pulverized but nut butter and a jar of tomato jam were intact. Everything was covered in a strange brown powder, perhaps from what had once been chocolate biscotti.
Note the special tape: does it bother you as it does me that the Post Office has need for preprinted tape that says “RESEALED REWRAPPED IN THE U.S.P.S.”? You can see my original shipping label is intact, so they must have used box cutters to open it before resealing and rewrapping, then smashing many times, perhaps with trash compacting equipment, for good measure.
Thanks to the Postmasters and Postmistresses of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Bell Gardens and Richmond, California for delivering this Christmas miracle!
The latest news on my wandering package from the Post Office (click to enlarge the picture and read the complete itinerary)
When last we checked in on my missing package, and the Post Office fail after I used an old address, it was just before the New Year. I had filed a Package Intercept request, agreeing to pay a fee plus new postage if they would simply redirect the package to the appropriate address. In addition, I happened to be on my way to San Francisco myself and I mailed a letter to the current occupants of the address where I had originally sent it (to relatives who’d moved away some time ago) asking them to call me if the package showed up so I could come claim it.
Sadly, it was all for naught. The package got tantalizing close at a San Francisco post office down the hill from the erroneous address, then USPS decided it would be better to send it to ZIP code 90052 in Los Angeles. About the same time, I got an email informing me that, even though the USPS had the tracking number and the corrected address, there was nothing they could do so my Package Intercept purchase would be refunded.
The package was not welcome in Los Angeles so it was returned to the mail processing center in Richmond (northern California). They didn’t want it either so they sent it to Bell Gardens, a Los Angeles suburb. It was then forwarded to the original Los Angeles ZIP and from there back to Richmond. Of course, Richmond wanted no part of it and sent it back to 90052. Finally the package “departed” 90052 two weeks ago and has been in transit ever since, and presumably will be so forever more.
Good thing there was nothing irreplaceable in there. Just some cookies and maple syrup which, I have a feeling, have not gone for naught. Enjoy, men and women in blue. You’ve worked hard for your prize.
My package is sitting in the post office at ZIP 94124 and “scheduled for delivery” 11 days ago. Can someone help me get it to its destination?
A few years back, Canada got a new Postmaster General. He was presumably a political appointee vs. someone who came up through the ranks, judging from what he said at his introductory press conference. He was asked how he could improve mail service for business mailers and he replied to the effect of, “quite frankly, I don’t think it’s a very good business model to count on the post office.” Informed that thousands of direct mail marketers and mail order companies did exactly that, he quickly modified his remark.
I thought of that anecdote this past week while trying to track a package that I’d misaddressed and sent through Priority Mail. This is a great and reliable service that brings many of us back to the post office once per year at Christmas time. For $16 bucks or so, we can send a box of a fixed size but any weight and it will arrive in 3 days or so.
It was when my recipient didn’t get the package that I looked at my receipt and discovered my error: I’d sent it to an old address which was on file with my USPS account. I then went online and input the tracking number (tracking is included with the Priority Mail service) and found that it had gone out for delivery, presumably was rejected, then was forwarded from San Francisco to City of Industry in Southern California, where it had at this point been sitting for several days.
I tried to find a way to contact the post office on the website and eventually found a form I could fill out. I had to choose a reason and said it was an address change. (There was no choice for “I made a mistake on the address and I want to correct it.”) I actually got a call, in fact two calls, from the post office in response to this effort. But when I returned the calls the phone numbers rang forever; nobody was picking up and the post office doesn’t have voicemail.
By now my package, moving from port to port like the Ancient Mariner, had made it back to the Bay Area, giving me hope it would be redirected to the correct destination. But after it sat in Richmond for several days it made its way back to the post office for ZIP code 94124—the same ZIP code from which it had been dispatched to my original bad address.
At this point I filed a Package Intercept Request. The USPS website explains that it is a “request” rather than an “order” because “With USPS Package Intercept® service, you can seek to redirect a domestic item you’ve sent. If your item has not been delivered or released for delivery, you can request to have it redirected back to the sender’s address, to a Post Office™ location as a Hold For Pickup, or to a different domestic address. This service is available for packages, letters, and flats with a tracking or extra services barcode and all mail classes except Standard Mail® or Periodicals (other restrictions may apply). The Postal Service™ will make every effort to locate your item prior to delivery however; there is no guarantee for the service. [italics added]”
Now think about that. The package has a barcode, it has a tracking number, the postal service knows where it is, the post office knows the corrected address, and yet it hasn’t been delivered. How can this be? What good is a tracking number if it can’t be used for tracking?
You wonder why the U.S. Postal Service is, year after year, billions of dollars in the red as business drains away to Fedex, UPS and other for-profit carriers. Think about how responsive UPS was to last holiday’s shipping fiascos to make sure they wouldn’t happen again, and they didn’t. When those companies offer tracking services, you better believe they’ll work.
Maybe the project to track packages at the Post Office ran out of budget so they’re able to track a truck full of packages from one central location to another (note the ZIP code is the lowest sort level on the report; there are no actual recipient addresses). Maybe the person who was in charge of the tracking package got promoted, or retired, and the replacement wasn’t interested in the project.
For me as the customer, knowing my package is within a few miles of its destination, and yet not delivered, is far worse than simply giving it up as “lost in the mail”. If somebody in the Post Office is reading this, would you please take the package off the shelf and deliver it before the cookies inside get any staler?
“Money in your mailbox” was the mantra of many a get-rich-quick offer in a simpler and sunnier era, promising greedy and gullible people they could run a successful mail order business from home. Simplicity has fallen on hard times, as has the United States Postal Service, and interesting direct mail examples are increasingly rare. But I hit a hot streak recently and will share them with you.
Outer envelope of Leukemia & Lymphoma Society mailer
First up is a package that literally has money in it, “How can 5¢ save a child’s life?” from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Association. This is a worthy but small organization and they went to the big agency that makes the address labels and a junior copywriter was assigned to the job. I know the copywriter is junior because they never answer the question!
The letter starts, “I’ve included a nickel to make a point. You and I both know that a single nickel won’t go far in the fight against blood cancers. But even nickels can quickly add up. And if you invest these nickels in blood cancer research that is searching for clues, you could save not only one child but thousands of patients.” Then the nickel is referenced in passing on the ask sheet: “your generous gift, along with this nickel…”
Letter intro from LLS package
The copywriter wasn’t comfortable with the (probably mandated) concept so they disparage it. No, a nickel really can’t do much. I’m just enclosing it to make a point. But what if they’d told us about one thing that actually does cost a nickel in research and used that as a stepping stone? And said I want you to send as many nickels as you can spare… and keep this one or pass this along and tell another person about the need. Take the time to make the reader think and visualize, instead of going through the motions.
Mystery outer envelope from Discover
Next up is one of those cleverly art directed packages that you want to open out of curiosity. What’s new is the peel off sticker next to the window that says “important information”. It looks like somebody working at their desk literally printed that off from a sheet of Avery labels and stuck it on the package. The placement of the sticker calls attention to a plastic card inside, its corner just visible through the envelope window. So I have to open it and discover… it’s a “proof of special invitation status” from Discover. They want me to take out a personal loan; if I was in the market for a loan they certainly would have gotten my attention.
HRC package after opening by 11 year old
There’s a story behind the next package, another anonymous package which has been torn into pieces. My 11 year old asked why I was recycling this without opening it and I pointed out the clues: “personal and confidential” but with a standard mail indicia indicates it’s a piece of junk mail. But he insisted on opening it (by ripping it apart). And lo and behold, it’s an affinity offer to supporters of Human Rights Council, a LGBT political action group. It’s not that long ago that all mail referencing the recipient’s LGBT status was delivered anonymously to protect their privacy but I am going to guess that any HRC member today would be proud to announce their affiliation. This is one anonymous mailing that should NOT have been anonymous; Nationwide Insurance could have multiplied their response by putting something simple like “A special announcement to HRC supporters” on the OE. But I’m guessing this is a standard format that is used by Nationwide for all kinds of affinity groups so that possibility never even crossed their mind.
Why is there 20 cents postage due on this letter?
Finally, a word about the sheer incompetence of the USPS which has to be a factor in the decline of direct mail. Back in the day when I was direct mail manager for a department store, we had to hire a “postal consultant” because it was impossible to communicate with the post office directly about the most efficient and cost effective ways to make sure our mail got through. Time and time again, the USPS has shot itself in the foot with oblique self-serving practices when it could have thrived if it treated itself like the business it claims to be.
This envelope is an example. It was rejected and returned “postage due” 3 weeks after mailing. It’s not overweight, so I took it to my local post office and asked for an explanation. They said it’s probably because of the cardboard square inside, the UPC from a product box, which I was returning for a rebate. It made the envelope “non machinable” and when it got stuck in the automated feeder it was kicked out, where it sat in a pile for a few weeks till somebody processed it. Turns out there is a 20 cent surcharge for “mail containing a rigid object”. Bet you didn’t know that. Metal’s obviously rigid, but what about a piece of cardboard? I guess if the automated equipment rejects it, it’s rigid. The machines have taken over; too bad they’re not more discerning.
I am the world’s biggest cheapskate, yet on more than one recent occasion I stepped out of a line at the Post Office and drove across town to UPS to ship the package for three times the cost with slower delivery. I see other people doing the same thing. They arrive, look at the line, shake their head and leave.
What’s wrong with the post office? Why can’t they just take our money and mail our stuff since that, after all, is that they’re there for?
Part of the problem is that the USPS has become the shipper of last resort. Nobody is simply buying stamps. Everybody is shipping a poorly wrapped package to some mysterious place, and fluid is leaking out, and they want insurance, and the clerk tells them to rewrap the package and get back in line. (At the HEAD of the line, so even if you’ve worked your way up to the front you’re not sure you really have.)
And that’s not even the biggest problem.
Everybody’s started using Priority Mail which seems sort of like blackmail, paying extra to insure your package will arrive when it’s supposed to. So, now the post office has started selling something called “Priority Bundles”. If you say you want to ship Priority, they ask you if you would like proof of delivery, or insurance, or a signature at extra cost. Of course, it takes a lot of time to explain these options and still more time to do the paperwork. And the line grows longer.
I can see the USPS’ logic: their clerks and customers are there anyway, so selling the extra services provides pure profit. But they disregarded the opportunity cost which is so great that other customers abandon the post office… perhaps permanently.
Much of my business depends on reliable of transmission of lots of mail, so this kind of thing makes me nervous. I’m reminded of what the new Postmaster General said in Canada a few years back when he was asked some question about direct mail advertising and reliability. I’m assuming this guy was a political appointee and had not read his briefing book. He said something to the effect of “that’s ridiculous, nobody would ever had a business that depended on the post office”. Right.
