General Forum

I currently have 8 PWE packages I sent from Canada to the US that seem to have gone astray - 6 sent in July and 2 sent in early August. Interspersed with these are a dozen PWE packages that made it just fine and in good time.

Does anyone know if there has been some sort of a random clamp down by Canada Post or the USPS that may delaying or stopping such items?

I was part of a discussion with a few members the other day where one mentioned they hadn't received a PWE from the other. It's going on three weeks now.

I'm also waiting on a few eBay items that were sent with the eBay Standard shipping, which I consider PWE. They are going on two-three weeks as well. Seems like USPS might be having some delays, though my mail with tracking hasn't had any issues that I can remember.

For non-PWEs, more than likely they spent a week or two at U.S. Customs before making it back into the regular USPS system.

I believe the issues are on the south side of the border. Most of mine are being delivered / received in 1 to 8 weeks but I do have one that has been astray for longer. Meanwhile I had one to the UK that was delivered 6 days after I mailed it. USPS is raising postage and decreasing service. Odd way to garner the support of their customers.

USPS is bogged down in politics.  One party wants to privatize the whole thing to line their pockets, and the other party doesn't use their opportunities to correct the problems caused by their counterparts across the aisle.  As a result, an enormous amount of the USPS annual budget is locked up in their absurd retirement fund (also to line the pockets of fund managers).  They regularly operated in the black until they were deliberately sabotaged.

sandyrusty wrote:

I believe the issues are on the south side of the border. Most of mine are being delivered / received in 1 to 8 weeks but I do have one that has been astray for longer. Meanwhile I had one to the UK that was delivered 6 days after I mailed it. USPS is raising postage and decreasing service. Odd way to garner the support of their customers.

I don't like gossip or rumors, but the other day my postal carrier said that USPS is no longer flying mail to other areas (Domestic), everything is going through truck.  With that said I question this as express and expedited services may require air transportation, but I wonder if this is why we are all seeing slower turnaround times on PWEs and items that don't have a guaranteed delivered by date. Especially if they are taking all mail from, example, Wichita, to KC to sort before it is brought back to Wichita for delivery.  Maybe some of you that work for the PO can support what he said as true or as BS, but my goodness, mail delivery time in the states is very inconsistent. 

a lot of the poor service is caused by the post office employees themselves....work with an awesome lady for years at my local office...she retired and now it is an adventure to ship a PWE...now we have t-shirt girl and stool boy working the window...t-shirt girl once said i needed a zip code on my PWE...to that i said, Canada does not use zip codes....i have not lost any PWE but arrival is slower then it was a couple of years ago..bring back the pony exress

I've had one sent out but never arrived or sent back to me in the past so yup

Keep in mind all the weather related issues lately from the various wildfires to the hurricane season ramping up, Then add the current labor shortage with the postal system especially here in the US. All that will combine to slow delivery down.

I'm at the point with the USPS and PWEs where I figure it'll get there when it gets there, even if it takes weeks. I'm waiting on one (that has nothing in it I'd miss) that's been a couple weeks now and I'm not too surprised, so I make sure to take that into account when I do PWE trades here. As long as the member I'm trading with hasn't stopped logging in and will occasionally respond to DMs (and of course doesn't already have lots of bad feedback) I don't assume any ill intent and am happy to just wait it out.