Why is mail taking so long?

[chriscollector]

When the mail gets stuck in the machine or falls off the conveyor-belt it isn't picked up that day, or even that week. They might only "service" a machine monthly or even bi-mpnthly and that is when they get all the letters that got stuck or fell off inside the machine. I got so sick of seeing a letter postmarked 4 months earlier that I went to the post office and wouldn't let it go untill they got the postmaster to come see me with an explaination. He basically told me "We are so under staffed and with all the distribution centers being closed the ones still open now have to handle 2 to 4 times tha volume and it's just impossible for all the letters to make it though with no mistakes. He then gave me some BS phone number of a state representitive to "call and voice your complaints because they are the ones who close the branches".

[ultimateager]

When the mail gets stuck in the machine or falls off the conveyor-belt it isn't picked up that day, or even that week. They might only "service" a machine monthly or even bi-mpnthly and that is when they get all the letters that got stuck or fell off inside the machine. I got so sick of seeing a letter postmarked 4 months earlier that I went to the post office and wouldn't let it go untill they got the postmaster to come see me with an explaination. He basically told me "We are so under staffed and with all the distribution centers being closed the ones still open now have to handle 2 to 4 times tha volume and it's just impossible for all the letters to make it though with no mistakes. He then gave me some BS phone number of a state representitive to "call and voice your complaints because they are the ones who close the branches".

you can avoid this (at least when you send something) by mailing your items off at the post office and paying the few extra cents (its not much more) for First Class Parcel. they told me that items sent by this way are not machine sorted.

this is a safer way to ship trading cards etc b/c the machines are also known for being a paper shredder

[dfreely]

If it came from the US, it would've went via airmail. Surface mail was discontinued here a few years ago.

[packrat]

it could be possible that your items were either misplaced or mis-routed. i shipped an item to hawaii with tracking on it. it went from michigan, to california, to dallas texas, back to california, to hawaii (not the right island) back to california, and then it finally got delivered almost 2 weeks after it should have been.

it cost me paypal disputes which were resolved but it was still a pain.

I had a similar problem a few years ago. In my case, I got a few numbers in the zip code mixed up and an item that was supposed to be shipped to a customer (I forget where) wound up in Texas somewhere, where they kept sending it out for delivery and returning it back to the same post office for about a month. I had to go to my post office to find out how to get it straightened out, then back home to get back online and rectify it. It finally made it there.

Sometimes when we think it's the post office's fault, it might be ours. I do have a tendency to read numbers wrong, for some reason, and have to be very, very careful when I write out unfamilair zip codes.

[chriscollector]

When the mail gets stuck in the machine or falls off the conveyor-belt it isn't picked up that day, or even that week. They might only "service" a machine monthly or even bi-mpnthly and that is when they get all the letters that got stuck or fell off inside the machine. I got so sick of seeing a letter postmarked 4 months earlier that I went to the post office and wouldn't let it go untill they got the postmaster to come see me with an explaination. He basically told me "We are so under staffed and with all the distribution centers being closed the ones still open now have to handle 2 to 4 times tha volume and it's just impossible for all the letters to make it though with no mistakes. He then gave me some BS phone number of a state representitive to "call and voice your complaints because they are the ones who close the branches".

you can avoid this (at least when you send something) by mailing your items off at the post office and paying the few extra cents (its not much more) for First Class Parcel. they told me that items sent by this way are not machine sorted.

this is a safer way to ship trading cards etc b/c the machines are also known for being a paper shredder

Unfortunately they lied to you. I send all my large (anything over standard envelope) first class. Pretty much everyhting is machine sorted these days.