<p>I dunno, xiggi, I just got back from USPS and mailed a package that has been sitting here for a week - UPS and Fedex here are closed today - USPS had a machine in the lobby that enabled me to ship at my convenience. Now, the price was ridiculous…</p>
<p>A lot of businesses don’t want their advertisements to be delivered only one day a week, and direct marketing is still the big business in the USPS. Direct mailings are the most cost-effective way for small businesses to advertise. When all communities have affordable access to the Inernet, then the USPS will be useless. For now, it serves poor and rural populations. As a employer, it gives preference to veterans and because their is an objective test, it allows for qualified candidates to be hired without connections. </p>
<p>Reforming the pension program would be a start, but those pensions mean that an entire class of people do not collect Social Security and their entire pension distribution is taxable, giving more money Uncle Sam. The healthcare benefits are excellent, but the tradeoff is lower wages than the private sector. </p>
<p>Rural post offices are also on the front lines in the war on drugs, and I don’t believe that any private company would have the same mandate to report illegal substances. Postal workers also regularly check on the elderly, report abuses and are often the eyes and ears of a community.</p>
<p>Convenience comes at a price. What can I say. 
But, one might think that you make the final decision to pay the ridiculous price at the time of shipment, and not later again in the form of bailing the losers out. Not to mention, that I also would pay for that convenience! </p>
<p>Anyway, I am afraid that my libertarian tendencies have become too visible! :)</p>
<p>Fedex has drop boxes. That said, I take mine to Kinkos to drop off, and get a receipt when I drop it off. Kinkos is open 24/7. Of course it won’t go out til tomorrow evening, but the USPS will also go out tomorrow.</p>
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<p>Once more with vigor…it is impossible to send some things via the internet. We have a kid living out of the country. Yes, we can have courier services through Fedex or UPS send things to her…but the reality is that the USPS is the fastest and least expensive option we have found.</p>
<p>And we had a friend who USED the courier service through Fedex…and guess what…the package has not yet reached its destination (more than a year has elapsed since it was sent).</p>
<p>Agree, thumper. It is very likely that I will be shipping those international flat rate boxes to a remote location beginning this fall.</p>
<p>Im my almost 3 decades of shipping things, the USPS has never lost a package or an envelope (knocking on wood now since the “reforms” are coming). Even when one letter got ripped (jammed on the belt?), someone at the USPS taped it securely and returned the contents to us. I rarely ship via Fedex or UPS, but the former has lost quite a few things, especially international packages. Of course, past performance is not aguarantee of the furure results, but based on my experience, I choose in the following order: USPS, UPS, and then Fedex if the former two do not ship to the location.</p>
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<p>I have been selling on EBAY for years. I know just about everything there is to know about mailing items.</p>
<p>I mailed my son’s housing form certified mail because I was told that that was the only way it could be tracked since it was a letter. The school does not have an online way to check it got there.</p>
<p>It was going from my post office to the schools post office box. I checked the number on the USPS website and it never showed it was delivered. I called the USPS and they said they would check into it and get back to me. They called, couldn’t find it. </p>
<p>This was over memorial day weekend so I had to wait until Tue to call the school and see if they got it. They did. Hurrah.</p>
<p>So I spend $3 to buy myself a job checking my own mail since even though it went from a post office to a post office, they obviously don’t sign for it. Glad it wasn’t a legal document.
Certified mail was worthless.</p>
<p>The USPS has delivered every package that goes to and from our house to D’s school with no problems. I wish them well.</p>
<p>QLM</p>
<p>I’m surprised they even accepted certified mail to a PO box. You can ship Fed Ex to a PO box. There’s no one there to receive it.</p>
<p>This is the official USPS wording about the meaning of tracking:</p>
<p>[USPS</a> - Frequently Asked Questions - Track Mail, Confirm Delivery, and Report Missing Mailpieces (Domestic)](<a href=“http://faq.usps.com/eCustomer/iq/usps/request.do?create=kb:USPSFAQ&view()=c[c_usps0611]&varset(source)=sourceType:embedded]USPS”>http://faq.usps.com/eCustomer/iq/usps/request.do?create=kb:USPSFAQ&view()=c[c_usps0611]&varset(source)=sourceType)</p>
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<p>You can “track” delivery confirmation on the “Track and Confirm” page. But to get the full tracking service, you have to use Express Mail.</p>
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<p>It seems that we all share one thing in common … we have our personal experiences. For me it would first FedEX, then USPS, and never UPS. Based on my experience, it is not that I would not use USPS. I do not recall having lost a box when shipping out. I do know that they were a royal pain to receive things in college and after college. They shared the nasty habit with UPS to dump boxes in the entrance of buildings. While I could not care less to lose a box of cookies sent by my mom or Jym626 <em>hint-hint</em> it annoyed me to no extent to find expensive books or electronics “delivered” with the same utter lack of care by the govies or the brown clad idiots. </p>
<p>And as I wrote, the tracking used by those companies is horrendous. Your accounts here are from the shipper’s standpoint. All I know is that when Amazon uses the UPS bozos, all I can count on is late deliveries and annoyances. Again, I would not use UPS if I had a choice. OTOH, I would and do use USPS when they are competitive, and that means to send VERY SMALL packages and unimportant letters. All the rest goes to FexEx express or Ground. My only issue with FedEx has been when a package was sent using a clearly marked residential delivery by the shipper. </p>
<p>I would not mind playing games. Let’s all pretend we send a package to Atlanta from San Francisco. The package does not fit in a 12x12x6 box and weighs 26 pounds? Do we think USPS will be the cheaper?</p>
<p>Anyhow, my biggest beef with USPS is more about whom they are and what they cost us. The fact that they might provide a reasonable service to the users has to be balanced with the crippling costs. And for that reason, I want their structure altered to the core. We cannot afford the fiscal follies of a system that is nothing but a welfare agency. They are either privatized or closed.</p>
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<p>Why are you surprised? Nobody has to sign for certified mail.</p>
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<p>Thanks for finally acknowledging that your real agenda here is ideological. :)</p>
<p>And don’t forget Western Union, when just nothing else will do. My kid once left for a cross country drive without his wallet, was lost in the wilderness about to run out of gas in the middle of the night, and the only way to rescue him was a Western Union, which was in a Safeway open 24 hrs in Truckee, Ca. </p>
<p>I think of this because there was recently an article somewhere about how WU is exempt from banking reforms and are charging huge amounts of dinero to the US Mexicans sending their earnings to family in Mexico</p>
<p>We have had two things lost via USPS recently. Both are S’s fault. He mailed himself in a plain thin white envelope a metal pocket knife that tore it’s way through the envelope before it reached us–we did get the torn envelope but even tho we called they never found the knife (or so we were told). S also mailed us a small flat rate box with a pound of NAIL, a t shrit & D’s keys in it. He secured the box with two address label stickers! We got the tshirt and the box with the stickers torn. Fortunately D’s keys had her school ID on it so the post office mailed it to her U & she was able to get the keyring & all its contents back. We feel sorry for the post office that likely the entire box of nails may have opened up in their machinery or somewhere along the line. H was sad he never got his nails! We did suggest to S that he use MUCH more tape in future packages. :)</p>
<p>I really just wanted some type of delivery confirmation but because it was a letter, not a priority mail item, they told me that certified was the only way I could ensure it was delivered. I did not want to kick for return receipt because that seemed like overkill but I was told that someone does in fact sign for the receipt of certified mail. How else could they track it was delivered? What is frustrating is that it went from a post office to a post office, not a house.</p>
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<p>You only have to sign for the item if there is signature confirmation purchased.</p>
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<p>They scan the item as delivered when it is delivered to the PO Box.</p>
<p>I had to mail my tax return this year and sent it certified, return receipt requested.</p>
<p>I guess they didn’t bother to scan it arrived because online it just showed the date I mailed it and the date it should arrive. No date that it had arrived.</p>