Usps

[Dancingfool]

I'm sure others have stories to share and some may not share my positive opinion.

Yesterday the one coin package lost in the mail returned to me. For the Maryland coin I sent out around 300 packages of different size and weight to domestic and international destinations. It was my first project of this type. Only one of the packages failed to make it to its destination (Decatur Ga.) and after several e mails back and forth I sent replacement coins. It finally showed up damaged but not broken and the person sent it back to me.It was postmarked Sept.6 and arrived just before Christmas.

I have since sent another couple hundred with similar results.I find the staff at my local post offices friendly and helpful. I look forward to my mail and I'm sure my mail carrier wonders what is in all these bubble mailers.

[+Nomad and the Librarians]

I was, among other things, a mail handler in the Army. I learned that the USPS handles some 15,000,000,000 pieces of mail per year.

 

If I send 1500 pieces of mail per year, roughly 4 per day every day, I make up 1 millionth of the total mail sent per year. (It's unlikely that I send that much mail.)

 

The PO loses a high absolute amount of mail per year because they handle a huge amount of mail. In fact, they lose a miniscule percentage of mail. If they lose 1/100 of 1 percent, they lose 1.5 million pieces of mail per year. (My guess is it's less than that.) It they lose 0.001 percent, I would lose, on average 1 piece lost in every 10,000 mailings. That's about 1 piece every 6 years.

 

Without meaning to should like General Patton or Cliff Claven, Americans have every right to be proud of the USPS. I have so much confidence that I rarely, in fact, almost never, buy insurance. The only time I do anything extra for mail is when I don't trust the person at the other end.

 

Let's hear it for the USPS!

[+Renegade Knight]

The USPS is my first choice for most things. I like them. Coins do seem to suffer a higher rate of loss than other things I'm used to.

 

In a prior life I sold trading cards on Yahoo auctions (back when they were a contender...) and never once lost one card in the mail.

[+Cave Troll and Eeyore]

It could be that the coins that go missing are feelable through the packaging , thus leading to temptation to the few untrustworthy individuals that get employment with the various worldwide postal agencies.

It is probably best to sandwich any coins between cardboard when posting them out , so they are less easily identifiable by feel.

Edited to add :-

We recently had 3 volunteer coins sent as a gift to us and they were stolen from the envelope It is thought that some individual may have assumed that there was legal tender in the envelope and so opened it to remove the coins.

Edited January 14, 2006 by Cave Troll and Eeyore

[+WeatherednBoston]

I have shipped over 2000+ items through usps and only had 1 person say they never recieved thier item. Thank god it was only fish food. Easy to replace!

[+pdxmarathonman]

The USPS is my first choice for most things. I like them. Coins do seem to suffer a higher rate of loss than other things I'm used to.

 

In a prior life I sold trading cards on Yahoo auctions (back when they were a contender...) and never once lost one card in the mail.

See the packaging test thread. Some coins have been known to cut their own way out of the package. Anything rigid like a coin increases its chance of getting banged up and ripped out of the package by the machines that process mail at very high speeds.

[+tokencollector]

I have so much confidence that I rarely, in fact, almost never, buy insurance.

 

A good choice. The postal system is good, but don't bother trying to file an insurance claim . I bought an item from a reputable dealer (I've done a lot of business with the person) and he sent it insured. The package arrived with half of the contents missing. From the postal imprint and the weight of the package received, it was obvious that everything was in at at the origin. I promptly filed a claim about 4 months ago. After getting a run around at the local office, they finally agreed to submit my claim. I had to turn in the contents of the package that did arrive (to be destroyed) in order for my claim to be processed. When I last checked, the local supervisor said that they would refile the paperwork, but there was no way to track it internally. I think I'm screwed.

 

On the plus side, the seller told me that he has spent over $1k on postal insurance that year, and mine was the only claim - good for postal service revenue and reliability, if not a minor disaster for me. All my other orders were shipped FedEx ground, which is what I typically prefer for larger parcels - nearly priority shipping speed at parcel post rates.

 

As for reliability, a few years back I remember a full page ad in the WSJ placed by the postal service - they had reached an unprecidented 90% relaibility mark. Granted, that's for on time delivery. It doesn't mean lost mail. I think the USPS is currently just slightly better than 90%. In my experience about 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 2,000 pieces of mail that I've sent or was supposed to receive (not counting junk mail) have not been delivered for whatever reason - about one every year or two.