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I used to sell textbooks online. Lots of them. And for a time, USPS had a monthly auction where they would auction off undeliverable items (they do it online no

by jjeaff 7y ago

I used to sell textbooks online. Lots of them. And for a time, USPS had a monthly auction where they would auction off undeliverable items (they do it online now). You would not believe how much stuff they are unable to deliver each month. An entire warehouse full. Of just textbooks, 2 to 3 semi truck loads. Another 5 to 10 semi truck loads of regular books. These included items where the packaging was damaged, or label torn off or illegible address, etc. We would go to the auctions and purchase tons of textbooks and started noticing that in some cases we were buying back books that we had shipped to customers and had been lost. They always made claims that they made every effort to return the lost items but as a last resort, they would end up at the auction. They would usually cost us several thousand dollars a month in lost shipments so I had a distinct rubber stamp with bright red ink made up that said "Attention USPS: if this book is lost in shipping, please return to the following address..." We stamped the inside cover (which is usually a blank white page) of every single book we shipped for a year. We never once had a lost book returned to us. But every month, we would buy up tons of lost books and when opening them to grade and stamp, we would frequently find our big stamp and it was always blacked out with magic marker. So instead of having their "investigators" trying to find where to return books, they were spending time destroying evidence to cover their butts so they could continue to profit off their own incompetence.

bluedino 7y ago
I was going to reply, this guy is lucky he used FedEx - had he used USPS he'd have no idea where th epackage went or why it wasn't delivered, and never gotten it back
TheRealWatson 7y ago
Once I bought something from SparkFun and when I entered the mailing address my zip code went missing the last digit (my fault.) Instead of being routed to Illinois it was sent to Connecticut. Even though the wrong zip code looked like a CT one, it didn't actually match any valid zip code. For a few weeks I watched this package go from the warehouse (somewhere in the South, I think) and get stuck in an endless loop in the East Coast. Anyhow, I told Sparkfun and they sent me a replacement order hoping they'd eventually get that package back and put it back in stock. I don't know if that actually happened.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Yes, we would see that occasionally. Once tracking got better with USPS, we would track packages that would loop back and forth between two hubs at least a dozen times before disappearing.
jplayer01 7y ago
This is a huge conflict of interest and it's no wonder it was abused. If they can profit off of "lost" items, they have every incentive to game the system and ensure that items that are lost stay lost (and some counter-incentive to ensuring packages aren't ever lost).
one2zero 7y ago
How did you ship your items? Was it Media Mail, First Class or Priority?
- jjeaff 7y ago
  Media mail. Which definitely had a higher loss rate but the savings made up for the lost items.
Spooky23 7y ago
USPS doesn't do conditional handling for stuff like that. It has to have the magic words. If you endorse an outer envelope with "Return Postage Guaranteed" or on item packaging with "If found, drop in any mailbox and send to <address>, return postage guaranteed", you'll get it. You'll get billed for the postage when it gets to the post office. I haven't done it at scale for shipments, but I worked at a place that did it with employee ID cards, and we'd get about 50% of lost cards back that way.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  It's an item that was paid for and not delivered as promised. It's not like anyone is expecting them to find a book in a coffee shop and return it to the owner for free. Postage is on them. And they claim that they do. Their claim is that they look through the items to find any identifiers to find out who to return it to in all cases. But in reality, they only do this with insured items because they effect the bottom line. I will also say that the USPS is rather amazing at what they do when everything works as it should. As a test, I once sent myself a postcard from the other side of the country. The only thing I put on the back was my first name and my zip code. It actually made it to my mailbox. Of course, in most cases that wouldn't be enough information. But I am from a small town and we were the largest single shipper, so the postmaster knew me by name.

by jjeaff 7y ago

bluedino 7y ago

I was going to reply, this guy is lucky he used FedEx - had he used USPS he'd have no idea where th epackage went or why it wasn't delivered, and never gotten it back

TheRealWatson 7y ago

Once I bought something from SparkFun and when I entered the mailing address my zip code went missing the last digit (my fault.) Instead of being routed to Illinois it was sent to Connecticut. Even though the wrong zip code looked like a CT one, it didn't actually match any valid zip code. For a few weeks I watched this package go from the warehouse (somewhere in the South, I think) and get stuck in an endless loop in the East Coast. Anyhow, I told Sparkfun and they sent me a replacement order hoping they'd eventually get that package back and put it back in stock. I don't know if that actually happened.

jjeaff 7y ago
Yes, we would see that occasionally. Once tracking got better with USPS, we would track packages that would loop back and forth between two hubs at least a dozen times before disappearing.

jplayer01 7y ago

This is a huge conflict of interest and it's no wonder it was abused. If they can profit off of "lost" items, they have every incentive to game the system and ensure that items that are lost stay lost (and some counter-incentive to ensuring packages aren't ever lost).

one2zero 7y ago

How did you ship your items? Was it Media Mail, First Class or Priority?

jjeaff 7y ago
Media mail. Which definitely had a higher loss rate but the savings made up for the lost items.

Spooky23 7y ago

USPS doesn't do conditional handling for stuff like that. It has to have the magic words. If you endorse an outer envelope with "Return Postage Guaranteed" or on item packaging with "If found, drop in any mailbox and send to <address>, return postage guaranteed", you'll get it. You'll get billed for the postage when it gets to the post office. I haven't done it at scale for shipments, but I worked at a place that did it with employee ID cards, and we'd get about 50% of lost cards back that way.

jjeaff 7y ago
It's an item that was paid for and not delivered as promised. It's not like anyone is expecting them to find a book in a coffee shop and return it to the owner for free. Postage is on them. And they claim that they do. Their claim is that they look through the items to find any identifiers to find out who to return it to in all cases. But in reality, they only do this with insured items because they effect the bottom line. I will also say that the USPS is rather amazing at what they do when everything works as it should. As a test, I once sent myself a postcard from the other side of the country. The only thing I put on the back was my first name and my zip code. It actually made it to my mailbox. Of course, in most cases that wouldn't be enough information. But I am from a small town and we were the largest single shipper, so the postmaster knew me by name.