[Today’s run: rest day]<\/p>\n
In mid-May I shipped a package to my Aunt in Colorado.<\/p>\n
The US Postal Service has something called Priority Mail, which usually is a pretty good deal.<\/p>\n
One reason it is a good deal is because they provide flat-rate shipping boxes.\u00a0 All you have to do is get a box and put your stuff in it.\u00a0 I can buy the postage online and print a label and the time in transit is usually about 3 days.\u00a0 That’s pretty good.<\/p>\n
And, if you buy online you get “delivery confirmation” which provides you with a tracking number.\u00a0 Just like Federal Express… NOT.<\/p>\n
Ok, so this package to Colorado never made it to Colorado.\u00a0 I can go online to the tracking website and see that it was checked in at the Columbus, MS post office.\u00a0 But after that it mysteriously disappeared.<\/p>\n
Really, I am not rabidly unhappy that a package got lost.\u00a0 The contents were not\u00a0 of great value.\u00a0 The part that I get somewhat steamed about is the false sense of security of this “track and confirm” feature.\u00a0 After talking to various people trying to find my package, it turns out that Delivery Confirmation is only really tracked when it is delivered.\u00a0 The tracking website does you no good in trying to track down the package if it goes awry.<\/p>\n
The US Postal Service does have a real tracking delivery service, called Express Mail, which is in the same price category as Federal Express Overnight. \u00a0 And that service includes real hand-off tracking\u00a0 (or so I currently believe).\u00a0 Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation is just so you can “prove” to someone that the post office delivered the package.\u00a0 If they do.<\/p>\n
Finally, the only refund you can get is the cost of the Delivery Confirmation feature, which is usually 60 cents.<\/p>\n
So, even though they acknowledge that they received your package and that it made its way into\u00a0 the Postal System, if they lose it, right under their own nose, they are not going to refund your postage or give you anything for the value of the contents.\u00a0 To get reimbursed for the value of the contents you have to buy insurance.\u00a0 I don’t know if there is a way to get a refund for the postage.<\/p>\n
I’ve taken out my frustrations in a mild way on various customer service reps in the USPS by asking why Delivery Confirmation is sold as “tracking” and you are given a “tracking number” but there really isn’t any tracking.<\/p>\n
(I think we should put these guys in charge of which doctor I get to see.\u00a0 [not])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
[Today’s run: rest day] In mid-May I shipped a package to my Aunt in Colorado. The US Postal Service has something called Priority Mail, which usually is a pretty good deal. One reason it is a good deal is because they provide flat-rate shipping boxes.\u00a0 All you have to do is get a box and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-thoughts","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=981"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":985,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/981\/revisions\/985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/w0ep.us\/OM\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}