Excuses, Excuses, Excuses...

[abostonboy]

So. I ordered something for like $500 on Ebay a month ago. A week ago I got this:

Hello, this message is being sent to everyone who recently bought items from me on eBay. I'm messaging you to update you on the status of the shipping of your item. Due to my work schedule, I am only able to ship on weekends. Last weekend the steering column in my car had an electrical malfunction which led to me having to buy a new car. I have business I have to attend to on Saturday and will not make it to the post office before they close. As such, the items will not be shipped until next Saturday, 5/10/08. I apologize for the delay and wanted to let everyone know what was going on. Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions. Thanks

[abostonboy]

Today I got this:

Hello, this e-mail is going out to everyone who recently purchased items from me. I had sent a previous e-mail explaining my situation with the delayed shipping of the items. In the meantime, I was involved in an accident last week and did over $5000 in damage to my new car. It took a few days to get a rental and as such I wasn't able to get to the post office this past weekend. I discovered the post office near the local airport was open to 11pm during the week, so I went tonight (5/13) and finally got everything shipped. Please keep in mind that if you bought magazines from me, there is a 2-9 day delivery time for media mail shipping. Also, if you won a large lot of mags or won multiple lots, they will be arriving in multiple packages and may not all arrive together. Thanks for being understanding with the delayed shipping time. Positive feedback will be left for you soon. Please do the same after you receive your items if you're satisfied. E-mail me if you have any ?'s

[abostonboy]

Seriously. I don't know who I trust more. Her or the post office now. I sold a very rare video game a week ago and the damn tracking number is not showing up that I mailed it out.

In the past month, I buy one damn thing on Ebay and sell one damn thing and what a fucking mess.

I have a $500 item that God only knows if I will ever get and mailed out an $800 item that is probably going across country on Pony Express.

[chubbs]

Seriously. I don't know who I trust more. Her or the post office now. I sold a very rare video game a week ago and the damn tracking number is not showing up that I mailed it out.

In the past month, I buy one damn thing on Ebay and sell one damn thing and what a fucking mess.

I have a $500 item that God only knows if I will ever get and mailed out an $800 item that is probably going across country on Pony Express.

Just curious, what game??

--Chubbs

[100boys]

Hehe crazy that people are paying this much for gaming stuff. Just sold my WoW account for about 650$ :bunny:

[abostonboy]

Just curious, what game??

--Chubbs

An old atari 2600 boxed game.

[MiamiB]

I would recommend always using Fed/Ex. Why trust an organization run by the government. Do you trust the government? I don't...look how well they run the government!

[abostonboy]

LOL! The US post office is a joke. According to the laws under which it now operates, the U.S. Postal Service is a semi-independent federal agency, mandated to be revenue-neutral. That is, it is supposed to break even, not make a profit. However, for the past five years or so it's made like a billion dollars a year. You stand in line forever. It takes 20 days for a parcel post to go from one side of the country to the other. You pay for delivery confirmation and the idiots don't even scan it in the computer.

Yeah. FedEx is the way to go. Unfortunately, when you go and check your mail, it's just so easy to drop something off.

Too bad only the post office can legally handle regular mail.

[MiamiB]

Well, then you get the joke. HAHAHA

[gaybucks_chip]

Actually, my own experience is that, these days, UPS beats the pants off of FedEx.

My own experience with FedEx in the past 4 years has been abysmal. It's literally something like 60% failure rate (meaning, overnight packages that take 2-3 days for delivery). I was shocked to hear a report somewhere that FedEx's on-time delivery rate was only 80 or 85% systemwide, which is about what the postal service rate is for express mail.

UPS, on the other hand, I cannot remember when I've had a delivery failure for air services. Ground sometimes takes an extra day from the advertised time but honestly, I've found UPS to be much more reliable -- and much more interested in having my business -- than FedEx.

Postal service... well, I agree. Priority has been pretty reliable for us, but parcel post is abysmal.

[abostonboy]

Actually, I "bitched" at the PostMaster about Parcel. He claims in the next year it maybe phased out. As the 2-5 days that the computer prints out is just wrong.

I agree about UPS. It is by far the best. I ordered an HD tv on amazon at 3PM and it was at my house at noon the next day. Gotta love paying no tax and 3.99 overnite shipping.

When we ran our Ebay business at the end we used UPS as we got a good rate. It's just not the most "easy" way to ship for smaller sellers.

FedEx ground is a fucking joke. It may arrive in the back of some guys pickup truck.

[MiamiB]

I was referring to Fed/Ex as being reliable as far as tracking. I have never encountered a problem with them with that aspect. Also, I have used them for delivery while living in Costa Rica, Brazil, and now Argentina. They have never lost a package or been late for me. I also used them in the USA with the same positive results...just my experience. Perhaps I have been lucky but I would not use anyone else...personally.

[abostonboy]

Fed Ex tracking is right in the money. Though, with Fedex ground, it REALLY does go across country on ground. Seems like it stops in every city along the way.

[hdkbill]

It's funny how we all seem to have different experiences with the different carriers. We quit using UPS two years ago because their service was so bad, especially on the pick up end in Palm Springs. Sometimes they would pick up sometimes they wouldn't...and most of the time, even though they knew our shipping department closed at 4 PM, they would arrive after 5 PM and then a note on our door acting like it was our fault we weren't there.

FedEx on the other hand has been great for us. Granted, we use 2nd Day Air exclusively with them, but their failure rate is virtually zero.

And, Priority Mail now get most of our business. We like them cause they are cheaper if we are having to go cross country, they are fast and the customer likes them because they don't have to be there to sign and they have Saturday delivery. When we first began using Priority Mail I was a bit worried since I would not have proof of delivery and I thought that we might end up getting a lot of "I never got it" complaints. Those complaints never happened.

For the money, Priority Mail can't be beat followed by FedEx. As for UPS, frankly, they've gotten too damn big for the britches and their systems are designe for their convenience not the convenience of their customers. I doubt we will ever use UPS again.

Bill

[derekt]

We don't use any of the bigger carriers. We have an account with Pitney Bowes, we ship everything to our customers / consumers who order from us via USPS Priority Mail Signature Confirmation. We also ship thorugh a 3rd party service: Pitney Bowes. We've only ever had one problem doing this. And that's with shipping to P.O. Boxes, rather than the receivers name signing for the package, the "sorters" will sign for it. But that's only when we ship to a P.O. Box.