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<p>I’m still impressed they were able to get two laptops shipped over from Alaska to NYC not only within the priority period, but also without any damage considering how inadequately packed it was.</p>
<p>GaldGradDad, I was the poster you were referring to.
Look, as a taxpayer there are plenty of things I don’t like to subsidize either. The question is whether or not we see mail service as a public good or a luxury. It obviously isn’t profitable to mail letters but it is to mail packages. It also obviously isnt worth it for cable providers or cell phone companies to provide adequate coverage through all of the US. The question that we must answer through votes or our pocket books is are we willing as a nation to force people to pay market rate to private companies for mail service. It doesn’t help when every person in Congress was fighting in the last discussion re: the postal service to keep the post office open. I can even see keeping the rural carriers and closing the actual offices, or renting space in places like banks or shipping companies (a la Germany) but it won’t happen overnight. In the meantime you are all about to have a decrease in the quality of mail service because distribution centers will be closed and processing will take longer with fewer employees. Then we can complain some on a new thread about the USPS :D</p>
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Well, I don’t always wait to complain but regardless now’s a good time to do it since a bill was just approved in the Senate to appropriate multi-billions of taxpayer dollars for a USPS bailout. The USPS can’t survive without changes unless it gets massive infusions of cash from taxpayers. It should be permitted to make the changes it needs in order to remain self-sufficient. The world is changing rapidly as a result of electronic media and since media is at the heart of what the USPS does, it simply has to change with it and the politicians need to permit it to happen.</p>
<p>I see rural areas of the USA and the world becoming more isolated as private business does not see serving those populations as profitable as increasing in urban areas.
Just as the private delivery businesses could not provide me with service to Southern India, at any price.
But hey! If there was any money in it, someone would eventually see it. Right?
[As</a> Greyhound Cuts Back, The Middle of Nowhere Means Going Nowhere Rural Air Service Alliance](<a href=“http://ruralairservice.org/2011/09/20/flashback-2004-as-greyhound-cuts-back-the-middle-of-nowhere-means-going-nowhere/]As”>http://ruralairservice.org/2011/09/20/flashback-2004-as-greyhound-cuts-back-the-middle-of-nowhere-means-going-nowhere/)
[Essential</a> Air Service cuts could ground rural communities - USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://travel.usatoday.com/experts/mcgee/story/2011/03/Essential-Air-Service-cuts-could-ground-rural-communities/45505628/1]Essential”>http://travel.usatoday.com/experts/mcgee/story/2011/03/Essential-Air-Service-cuts-could-ground-rural-communities/45505628/1)
[II</a>. Our Rural Transportatione System](<a href=“http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/publications/rural_areas_planning/page03.cfm]II”>[Page Title Missing] - Rural Areas Planning - Publications - Planning - FHWA)</p>
<p>“Just as the private delivery businesses could not provide me with service to Southern India, at any price.”</p>
<p>Ditto - the only way to send the paperwork to one of our inventors was via the USPS.</p>
<p>Thank you for those articles emeraldkity4.</p>
<p>OP here–</p>
<p>If anyone is interested, I contacted the post office last Friday. Nice people on the phone who gave me assurances that I would be contacted by the next business day. If not, I should call back. No phone call. So, I called back. Same assurances. Same deafening silence from my telephone for the subsequent three days. Yesterday, talked to a supervisor who said they would forward my case to consumer affairs. Still no call, but I just received a form letter in the mail today saying they are declaring that my item is “irretrievably lost.” </p>
<p>I don’t want to get into the debate about the merits of the post office, but I really think they shouldn’t say that they will have someone call back within 24 hours if that is not the case. I find it really irritating to say the least. Just say that someone will get back in a week or so, or whatever the truth is. And to add insult to injury, they informed me that they do not refund postage on lost items.</p>
<p>So, I am out about $100 ($15 postage, $60 worth of items in box and $25 for replacement driver’s license) and hours of aggravation. It will take me a long time to trust the post office again with anything that I want to ensure gets to its destination. </p>
<p>Anyway, I never meant to spark the debate about the post office’s existence (I actually do believe it serves an important function) I just want to serve as a warning to people that with today’s budget cuts, it doesn’t seem to function as well as one would hope.</p>
<p>Now, my son has to contact the DMV to get that replacement license. From one bureaucracy to the next…</p>
<p>Another USAA member, here, but I’m not about to start speculating about how it might impact my mailing costs - too dangerous ;)</p>
<p>I did just purchase a stack of graduation cards and pre-stamped the envelopes before putting them in a larger mailer envelope which I weighed and bought postage for at the self serve USPS kiosk after hours. I popped it in the slot so it could make its way to my MIL who can send one of the cards back to our D 
Go USPS! My MIL can barely dial to call us and doesn’t get that calling a cell phone is no different than calling a landline for her, but she mails and receives letters and cards like crazy. She lives in a mill town and there are many people who we encounter when we go back there who are not “wired”. The financial and cultural barrier is still fairly high in many places.</p>
<p>I like USPS for packages as well - our post man happens to be our neighbor and walks everything up to the door - very “Sesame Street”. :)</p>
<p>OP, so sorry that your package was lost. What a pain…</p>
<p>Still too early to predict when/if USPS delivery will become a relic of the past. There’s the generational issue of senior citizens who don’t use email (coughcoughmyinlawscoughcough :rolleyes:). The financial issue of people who can’t afford access to the internet or to cell phones. Security issues of safely delivering sensitive documents. Email delivery glitches, and making sure important communications don’t get lost in spam filters. There are areas which still don’t have broadband internet connectivity, even relatively close to major metropolitan areas here in Southern California. And so on and so on. These are all problems that will be taken care of in the fullness of time, which is not now. :)</p>
<p>For social reasons, Miss Manners is possibly clutching her chest a bit at the turn this thread has taken. Hand-drawn thank you notes from our young nieces and nephews, already-printed photos, letters to/from a child at camp, condolence letters, invitations to major lifecycle events (and receiving snail mail rsvps)…the electronic versions of these just aren’t the same. Slower delivery speeds in exchange for affordable rates works here.</p>
<p>Sorry too L.A.Parent. The tracking of the USPS is problematic. We returned a TV to Walmart which we could not add any tracking to because it was a prepaid mailing sticker per the USPS. Some how their rules are that you cannot add anything to something that is prepaid. Good for them I guess if it got lost.</p>
<p>I havn’t checked to see if that TV actually got returned to Walmart yet. Hopefully so.</p>
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<p>They do if you buy insurance.</p>
<p>“They do if you buy insurance.”</p>
<p>In any other business, if someone fails to perform the service for which they were contracted, at the very least you would expect a refund of the monies paid for that service. Insurance should go to the value of the contents (i.e. the incidental damage of failure to perform said service)</p>
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<p>Then anybody could walk into the USPS and say “never received the package, I want a refund”. You have the burden of proof to show that the item was never received. Since YOU DECIDED you didn’t want insurance, you are out of luck.</p>
<p>This is why all companies ship their items with some sort of confirmation so customers can’t do that.</p>
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<p>Insurance does go to the value of the contents and it goes to the price of the postage.</p>
<p>“Then anybody could walk into the USPS and say “never received the package, I want a refund”. You have the burden of proof to show that the item was never received. Since YOU DECIDED you didn’t want insurance, you are out of luck.”</p>
<p>Mmmh, I can see your argument, but proving a negative is very difficult. It still makes no sense that the burden is on the recipient of the service to prove that the service was delivered (or not). Seems that the burden should be on the person providing the service to prove that the service was accomplished. The reality may be that the post office doesn’t have the ability to track packages in a cost efficient way, hence they try to shift the burden to the consumer to pay for that ability. But from a strict consumer standpoint, it is backwards logic. (By the way, the post office doesn’t dispute that they lost my package, they just make it a policy not to make refunds. I could potentially fight it in person, but it certainly isn’t worth my time). On principle, however, I just find it wrong and unjust. </p>
<p>Had I realized all this, I would have purchased insurance, or tracking or whatever else would enable me to find my package, but I mistakenly just trusted that I was paying for a service that would be accomplished. Now, of course, I am sadder but wiser for the future. Still, I think you are a little unfair to blame this on me for not buying insurance. Is the post office only obligated to perform services if you purchase insurance? Maybe then they should just call first class mail “Russian Roulette”-- if you’re lucky, you might get your letter/package delivered. </p>
<p>Somehow I thought a large package was less likely to get lost than a thin letter. I just can’t figure out what they did with it.</p>
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<p>Exactly. MISTAKENLY THOUGHT. Don’t blame the USPS for your mistake.</p>
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<p>How do expect the USPS to help you if you don’t purchase any sort of confirmation?</p>
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<p>How many items have you mailed over the years (including letters and packages)? How many have been lost? I’ll let you do the math on that one.</p>
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<p>How many items that you bought online didn’t come without any form of confirmation?</p>
<p>L.A.Parent, I mailed a school form certified mail which did get to it destination but the USPS did not do their part of signing/scanning it in for arrival so in computer it does not show that it arrived. I was in the P.O. mailing another school form and told the mail lady and she said for me to bring in my receipt and she would give me my money back. </p>
<p>So in theory, if you paid for certified mail, you’d have a tracking number and receipt for recourse. </p>
<p>insomniatic, everything bought on line can be tracked. Don’t know who you are buying from but I can’t think of anything that I have bought that didn’t have some type of order number or emailed receipt of purchase.</p>
<p>Insomniatic:</p>
<p>Clearly we just disagree philosophically on this issue. As a PRACTICAL matter, I realize that I should have purchased insurance, tracking or just chosen a different carrier. However, as a PHILOSOPHICAL point, I believe that as a matter of commerce and fairness, that it is reasonable to expect that when you pay for a service, that service will be rendered. If the service is not rendered, I don’t think that the money is earned. Hence, my belief I should be morally entitled to a refund. Do I expect to get it? No. Is it worth fighting for? No. But morally, do I feel entitled? Absolutely. My “mistake” (I guess sarcasm didn’t translate above) in not protecting myself did not rise to the level of excusing the post office’s larger mistake in NOT DELIVERING THE PACKAGE–the service for which I paid.</p>
<p>In any event, I clearly am spending way too much time on this. I started this thread, partly to vent, I will admit, and partly as a warning to others not to expect the post office to always perform. Yes, thousands (millions?) of letters and packages are delivered everyday, but I think it is getting worse. In the last three months, I have had two clients have to reissue me checks that were sent in the mail and never received.</p>
<p>Anyway, if nothing else I hope others will be mindful of the possible consequences when they mail their packages…and maybe purchase insurance, tracking, certification or just a different service. I know I am going to investigate alternatives now since my faith in the post office is obviously shaken.</p>
<p>Thanks to everyone who offered helpful suggestions and sympathy. It was much appreciated!</p>
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<p>Does anyone actually expect the post office to perform? 
You must love Amtrak, too!</p>
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<p>Where did I state something different? This is what I stated:</p>
<p>“This is why all companies ship their items with some sort of confirmation so customers can’t do that.”</p>