Defund the USPS
22nd October 2020
I had a fairly irritating experience this week which is yet to be resolved. I purchased a set of carbon fiber wheel rims in order to build a new set of wheels for my new bike. The rims and hubs turned out to be incompatible, so I had to return both, the hubs to my local bike shop, the rims to a shop in Colorado. Concerned about getting the rims back to the dealer I shipped them via USPS Priority Mail last Thursday. The charges were $35 for the service and an additional $30 for insurance on the rims which have a cost of $975 each. They were supposed to be delivered on Monday according to the tracking notice, but they have been posting expected arrival dates as one day beyond the actual expected date, so I thought that they would arrive on Saturday.
According to the tracking, they left my local post office for a more centralized office a bit north of here. Apparently, they stayed in that office until Monday when they finally shipped to Colorado. I received a notice on Monday night that they would not arrive on time. Boy! Was I surprised! The notice did not change on Tuesday or Wednesday. Nothing updated. It took some searching but I was able to find a Customer Service site and filled in the form. Very surprisingly I got a call back that afternoon from a representative.
What I was told is that due to Covid (which has pretty much become the standard excuse for every possible demonstration of incompetence) the postal service was understaffed and buried in excess mail. They are flying fewer planes, so my package for which I paid premium rates was “likely” shipped via truck. No refund was offered for the demotion in service, and no date for its arrival.