Projects Getting parts in the mail .

I am surprised how big a package the US Postal Service handles now, last week I received one of those plastic engine blocks (351 Ford Windsor w/heads) in the mail.

 

My experence boxes from FedEx come in better shape. I sold a Hemi flywheel to a guy on the HAMB it was heavy so I made a made a wooden box UPS wanted $10 more because it was not in a cardboard box go figure.

 

My UPS guy does a good job, my only gripe is they will leave stuff in my carport at the back door and I have to look for it since we don't use that door all the time.

FedEx on the other hand, is awful. I bought some tires from Discount Tire Direct a few years ago, two at a time, both times they delivered them to my neighbors house. Glad it was kin folks or I might never have seen my tires. Other packages have arrived looking like they went through a meat grinder. Wife ordered a glass crock pot thingy, it was broke in a zillion pieces when they put it on the porch, they had to have known it was broke, you could hear it crashing in the box!

USPS is hit or miss, some packages arrive in good shape, some don't.

When I was selling a lot of car parts on eBay, I made sure to pad and package stuff like it was glass. If you ever got a package from me, it had lots of packing, peanuts, newspaper, shredded paper {good way to get rid of scrap paper, lol}, bubble wrap, etc. I taped everything, sometimes using half a roll of tape on one box. Might take thirty minutes to get into the box, but what was inside usually survived! Plastic pipe makes a good shipping tube for chrome and stainless trim!

 

My UPS and USPS people are great and very attentive both at my home and at the office. Sorry you had a problem. You have to remember that UPS/FEDEX deliver almost 7 billion packages a year.USPS delivers 154 billion pieces of mail and packages yearly. That means that if only 1/100th of 1 percent (0.0001) go awry, that is still 16 million. Most of us would think a 99.99 percent success rate was pretty good.

 

I hate them all. Ups being the worst. UPS-Underpaid Package Slingers. Assholes

 

9 times out of 10 it's not your delivery guy,he's just the one that gets blamed! HRP

 

Sorry, man. That's just an ignorant statement. Like saying that about all "sign maker, welder,fabricator, sign painter"s.
There are mostly good, and a few bad, apples in every barrel and it's not fair to paint them all with the same brush.
If I was your deliveryman, last guy in the chain, I wouldn't think much about giving you good service either.

Besides, FWIW, UPS drivers make $25-30/hr.

 

You should drive half way across the country and pick up your own damn stuff then.

 

I didn't think we were scheduled for another shipping bitch fest until next month.

 

Same here. It is a woman who brings them, puts them on my porch, in a plastic bag if there's a chance of rain and pets the dog. The US mail isn't too bad but I occasionally get someone else's mail. Fed Ex driver must be dyslexic as he can't tell the difference between 1150 and 1105 as we often get each others packages.

 

I worked for a Harley-Davidson in Texas for 17 years and handled all of the shipping and receiving. Any time I sent out a package,I made sure it was OVERPACKED with packing material that would go beyond protecting the contents. Anytime a customer recieived a less than perfect package, the shipper always claimed it was not packaged properly and would NOT pay the claim. I "won" less than 10 percent of the claims as "they" said the package was not properly packaged!

 

I tend to lose my ass on packing materials when selling on Ebay. Would rather that then have somebody unhappy on the other end. 2" of Styrofoam all the way around in a snug box and lots of tape in every direction. Somebody once mentioned shippers have conveyors 10' high and I shoot for that kind of drop. Had people send me stuff in oversized boxes loose with virtually no padding, packed in popcorn (actual popcorn) and once with trash (bills, bags wrappers, etc).

 

It can be the delivery person. My sister lives in an apartment complex and the Fed Ex driver always claimed nobody answered a knock on their door. My sister has a chihuahua that barks if anyone walks past her door. Everyone in the complex was having the same problem. They talked to the manager as they suspected the driver was just leaving notices in the mail boxes. They checked the security videos and found that the driver never brought packages into the complex. He just put notices in the boxes that they had to pick up the packages at Fed Ex. Fed Ex tracked the driver and found that he was doing that at several places because it saved him time.

 

Merchandise left on the porch of your home or apartments is an easy score for the parasites, nobody buys anything where they live so they'll drive over to yours to pick it up. This is one reason the delivery folks are actually supposed to leave notice instead of delivery, if you live in a sketchy area. It's a big problem around the holidays but it's probably year round by now. If you can get to know your driver or carrier, try and have a location out of sight in a breezeway or garage or an old milkbox (remember those?) where items can be placed. If it's valuable or unique/irreplaceable then send it signature required, return receipt. The delivery barcodes just say it was delivered, it doesn't say where. Might be three streets over.

 

I have had a FedEx guy & a UPS guy in recent months (on two seperate occasions) that set my packages down on my front porch.... directly in front of my cat door. WTF?