The three local USPS locations to me are a typical government entity. Long lines, constantly short staffed, idiotic people that work there, unnecessary bureaucracy. I recently had the folks at my local USPS encourage me to re-box some of the jam I sell for the USOs, and the extra room in there could have used a bit more packing but I don't think it was egregiously bad. Either way, I sent the item priority mail which comes with the 50 dollars of insurance by default. My recipient, a forum member here, was super cool about receiving this broken package and took a good quality photo for me to see. Bummer. I try to file a claim online and the site was fighting me on it, so I figured I'd stop by the physical location for a copy of the form.
Person one tells me that to file a claim, I need to have the recipient send me the package and the broken contents BACK TO ME. I ask if the USPS is going to reimburse this ridiculous request. She says no. I am 99.9999% sure this is not the procedure but to drive my point home, I ask if the USPS expects me to incur 50+ dollars of shipping costs to INITIATE an insurance claim for 50 dollars. She says yes. I ask to speak to someone else. Person 2 comes along and says that they no longer do paper forms for the insurance claims process. This is interesting, since you can call a number and request for a paper form. As she is explaining the "We can't help you" thing, she tosses a customer's package about 5 feet into a bin. I get it, this is a labor job and things have to be moved. However, it shouldn't be a surprise when stuff breaks if they are tossing stuff out of laziness.
Today, I ship out the replacement at a DIFFERENT post office location. I mark the package as fragile and I wrote "Do not throw, do not crush under other heavy boxes" on the package, half as a joke, but half seriously. The clerk looks at me and says "Listen, Imma be honest witchoo, we throw dem packages". "OK, well, if you decide to throw the package and you break the contents, then I will file an insurance claim again." "Yeah, but that's how we do things. We also will stack heavy big boxes on top of yours" "OK, again, you can choose to treat the package with negligence, and then I will put in a claim to get my 50 dollars worth of merchandise back." "But this is how the USPS does stuff. We throw stuff." "...right, so again, you can consciously choose to mishandle this merchandise, and I am paying for insurance. Every time you choose to consciously break the contents of my package, I will invoke the usage of the insurance that I have purchased from you. We can go through an indefinite loop of breaking things and claiming things, if that is what you guys want to do." "Well, that's not how it works, you need to just be understandin' that we throw stuff and you can't get mad if things break." Of course, like most government robotic workers, this lady didn't get it. She was pre-programmed from the factory with a few NPC dialogue lines and my dialogue tree had ventured far outside the realm of comprehension. Perhaps this is a start of a video game achievement where I see how many times I can have a package destroyed consecutively and how many times I can request reimbursement for it. On top of that, the prices are totally arbitrary. A flat rate box to one part of the country versus a SMALLER box to another ends up shifting dramatically in price. UPS has always been far more predictable on price. I will use them from now on, but all shipping for individual consumers is up right now and I am at the point where I will soon have to refuse online sales because it's not worth the headache or the costs.
Other runner up highlights include the USPS losing a chunk of my mail and refusing to let me use a military ID as valid identification, at a post office that was on a military base. Every government organization like the USPS, the DMV, etc etc, all work like this. It is utter insanity.
Person one tells me that to file a claim, I need to have the recipient send me the package and the broken contents BACK TO ME. I ask if the USPS is going to reimburse this ridiculous request. She says no. I am 99.9999% sure this is not the procedure but to drive my point home, I ask if the USPS expects me to incur 50+ dollars of shipping costs to INITIATE an insurance claim for 50 dollars. She says yes. I ask to speak to someone else. Person 2 comes along and says that they no longer do paper forms for the insurance claims process. This is interesting, since you can call a number and request for a paper form. As she is explaining the "We can't help you" thing, she tosses a customer's package about 5 feet into a bin. I get it, this is a labor job and things have to be moved. However, it shouldn't be a surprise when stuff breaks if they are tossing stuff out of laziness.
Today, I ship out the replacement at a DIFFERENT post office location. I mark the package as fragile and I wrote "Do not throw, do not crush under other heavy boxes" on the package, half as a joke, but half seriously. The clerk looks at me and says "Listen, Imma be honest witchoo, we throw dem packages". "OK, well, if you decide to throw the package and you break the contents, then I will file an insurance claim again." "Yeah, but that's how we do things. We also will stack heavy big boxes on top of yours" "OK, again, you can choose to treat the package with negligence, and then I will put in a claim to get my 50 dollars worth of merchandise back." "But this is how the USPS does stuff. We throw stuff." "...right, so again, you can consciously choose to mishandle this merchandise, and I am paying for insurance. Every time you choose to consciously break the contents of my package, I will invoke the usage of the insurance that I have purchased from you. We can go through an indefinite loop of breaking things and claiming things, if that is what you guys want to do." "Well, that's not how it works, you need to just be understandin' that we throw stuff and you can't get mad if things break." Of course, like most government robotic workers, this lady didn't get it. She was pre-programmed from the factory with a few NPC dialogue lines and my dialogue tree had ventured far outside the realm of comprehension. Perhaps this is a start of a video game achievement where I see how many times I can have a package destroyed consecutively and how many times I can request reimbursement for it. On top of that, the prices are totally arbitrary. A flat rate box to one part of the country versus a SMALLER box to another ends up shifting dramatically in price. UPS has always been far more predictable on price. I will use them from now on, but all shipping for individual consumers is up right now and I am at the point where I will soon have to refuse online sales because it's not worth the headache or the costs.
Other runner up highlights include the USPS losing a chunk of my mail and refusing to let me use a military ID as valid identification, at a post office that was on a military base. Every government organization like the USPS, the DMV, etc etc, all work like this. It is utter insanity.
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