US Postal workers did stage an illegal 8 day wildcat strike in 1970. The strike started in New York and spread to other cities. I was aware of this because my father was a letter carrier at the time although the strike didn't have much effect on our town in the Northwest. President Nixon ordered the Postal employees back to work and most refused. The National Guard and Armed Forces were called in to try and deliver the mail with poor results. The strike led to the Postal Reformation Act of 1970 after which the United States Post Office Department became known as the United States Postal Service which allowed collective bargaining for workers although it is still illegal to strike.
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UPS Ground Rates going UP UP UP
- Thread starter Holdsg
- Start date
Some of the service is de facto privatized. Small private contractors deliver in my area who's only qualification seems to be that they own a vehicle. Canada Post (CP) delivers to fanchisees that rent a corner in Shopper's Drug Mart stores; these serve as depots.
However CP is classified, the bottom line is that the service is atrocious:
- CP stopped delivering to door. Seniors are forced to pickup their mail from outdoor community mailboxes that are exposed to the elements (hidden behind four foot snowbanks on occasions) and located quite far.
- The unsolicited mail clutter (printed advertisement) is so huge that if I don't pay attention I am likely to lose important mail; I always double check the recycle box. Painful lesson learnt...
- The amount of mail I receive by mistake is astounding. This is due to (CP) delivery error repeated complaints spanning several years have not corrected the situation.
- CP stated in a written notice to me that the onus is on me to inform senders of correspondence addressed to the previous tenant that the tenant has moved. "Return to sender, address unknown.
No such number, no such zone..." and no such service.
- Rates and quality of service have been heading in opposite directions with unchecked exuberance.
- CP has become a side-show with well-known charlatan extraordinaire Deepak Chopra at the helm (thankfully, gone as CEO since March).
USPS provides superior service to CP that is for sure. USPS service in my experience is on par or better than UPS (UPofS) or FedEX and much cheaper.
True - or worse! In fact I shipped a bass not even coast to coast, but still maybe 2,000 miles, and the FedEx and UPS rates were ballpark $125 - and I used a small box, so I thought. USPS had rate of “only” $85 plus insurance.
Someone shipped me a bass and paid $65 with USPS, but they used the triangular thin box that it used inside another box - except they didn’t use a second box. Just the thin triangular box! Bass made it to me ok somehow.
Reverb offers shipping discounts to it’s sellers. I charge a flat $60 shipping. (the boxes I buy new cost $13 ea) If I ship under 1,000 miles, the shipping cost is usually less (like $40 or so), but when shipping coast to coast it is $75-80. By charging $60 flat, I figured I’d average out to break even - but most of my sales have been to the opposite coast!
A $125-150 shipping cost to sell a bass using Talkbass strips the value out of any $300-500 budget bass I own. I have some $150 basses that I can only sell local.
USPS has a record revenue year and still manages to lose tons of money. That's not going to continue for much longer.
okcrum
in your chest
UPS and the other major shippers have been doing this for years, every year. At 5% per year, it's only taken about 14 years for the prices to double.
You've got to be a bigger customer than most of us to get the shipping rates discounted or get flat rates.
No thanks. Not yet, anyway.
We get a lot of stuff delivered to our office through Amazon Flex (their own shipping service) and it sucks. It may improve, but so far its been terrible. Best I can tell, they use contractors to deliver stuff (kinda like Uber or Postmates), and they show up at random times during the day (or night). We have had multiple problems with that.
Here are a few examples from the last two months.
1. People will put a specific range of delivery times on the order (standard business hours), and then it will show that they tried to deliver it at 8p and couldn't get to our suite. Then when you contact "customer service" it is obviously a person in India reading from a script that either doesn't understand or doesn't care what your actual problem is.
2. They deliver packages to our address sometimes that are clearly marked with a completely different address, but they claim they can't take it to that address because their scanner says it goes here. But right there on the shipping label, it clearly shows that it goes somewhere else.
3. We have put requests in for them to pick those incorrectly delivered packages to their correct address, and in one case that package sat on our receptionist's desk for a week.
4. The people who deliver the packages always seem confused, and they are oftentimes different people from the time before. So guess what? They make repeated mistakes, because it isn't the same people coming to our office.
Pass on that. Hard pass on that for something nice like a guitar or amp!
At least with USPS, FedEx, and UPS, we know the delivery people well, and they know us. We know when they will be here on any given day. Heck, a lot of times the UPS guy will find us at our specific desks because he knows the people that get a lot of stuff delivered. And that same guy has been delivering to our office ever since I've been here (7 years). Personally, I'd pay 5% more in 2019 to keep that guy around. He works hard, he's nice, and sometimes we get to talk about fantasy football a little bit. I'll take that over the random folks delivering at random times backed by script-reading "customer service".
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There’s some kind of mistake.
A bass in an hsc is about 48x21x6 - The dimensions you have there don’t match what you said you shipped. No wonder you got a smoking deal! Congrats!
A bass in an hsc is about 48x21x6 - The dimensions you have there don’t match what you said you shipped. No wonder you got a smoking deal! Congrats!
I saw a new used cab for $205 the other day does that count? My kids don’t need Christmas presents anyway
Perhaps USPS needs to be privatized too.......................
A Failed Mission: U.S. Postal Service Details Another Massive Loss For The 2017 Fiscal Year. Today, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) released its financial report for the 2017 fiscal year in which its leadership detailed a greatly concerning loss of $2.7 billion.Nov 14, 2017
How much in debt is the post office?
Moreover, at the end of fiscal year 2015, USPS had about $125 billion in unfunded liabilities and debt, most of which were for retiree health and pension benefits. USPS continued to have $15 billion in outstanding debt—the statutory limit.Jan 21, 2016
Thread is about UPS rate increase. For those of us who sell stuff on TalkBass or eBay, outrageous shipping rates are beginning to make it impractical.
Yesterday was originally scheduled to be a NBD. It must be a sweet bass because it apparently had to play all the clubs in the greater LA area for 5 days before finally hitting the road.
FedEx is unable to give me a new estimate on a delivery date. I expect it will probably be Monday, a full four days later than originally stated.
FedEx is unable to give me a new estimate on a delivery date. I expect it will probably be Monday, a full four days later than originally stated.
What timing, I ordered a TC Electronics BQ500 head from GC on 11/28, UPS sends me a tracking notice that it would be delivered on 12/5, ok, no problem. I check the progress on 11/30 and now delivery is scheduled for12/6, um, ok, I check the progress on 12/5 and see that it is in Edison, NJ, cool, only about 30 mins. from my house so i have every expectation of getting it on 12/6. Check the status on the morning of 12/6 and see a big yellow alert sign saying it was "Mis-sorted" and on it's way to Redmond WA. and that there "Might" be a delay in shipping, really, you think so? Today I get an e-mail telling me I can expect it on 12/14. So you can only guess how I feel about them raising their rates. 
Another vote for USPS. The last time I sold a bass, I shipped it via USPS and it was a lot cheaper than either UPS or FedEx. The recipient received it on time with no issues. I will be using only them from now on.
Couple points in response to this. First, USPS' postage rates have not kept pace with inflation. In fact, mailing a first class letter costs just a penny more now than it did in January 2014. [Invalid or Expired Link Removed]
"Record revenue" sounds great, but if revenue doesn't at least keep pace with inflation, that's not financially healthy. Not sure how privatizing would help, except that they might then be allowed to raise rates faster!
Second, USPS is required by law to pre-fund its employees' health benefits for the next several decades. Private companies, obviously, do not.
I'm not saying there aren't real issues with USPS' management, but they're clearly not on a level playing field with private firms.
