USPS Loses Tractor Magneto

On Nov 15th I won a hard to find tractor magneto on
ebay..The seller shipped it on Nov 17th from near
Houston,TX...For some reason it was sent to Cincinnati
even though I live close to Kansas City...It left Cincinnati on
Nov 20th at 3:03 am to probably never be seen again..The
tracking information stops there...What are the odds of it
ever turning up?

After contacting the seller he tells me that he's shipped
USPS for years with no problems and now just recently he's
had 3 problems..To top it off USPS just recently lost a book
I ordered from Amazon...

Anyone else having problems with USPS? I used to trust
them..

Every shipper loses things. Stuff happens. I've had problems with all of them. Hopefully the seller insured it. Good luck finding another one.

They should have the address to where it was delivered.
I shipped two items one time and the Fedex clerk put the shipping labels on the wrong two packages. Finally after a few days we got it straightened out. Good luck.

Many Many years ago I worked in a shipping department. We always put our address and the customers address inside the package around the item. Many times that would get it to the correct person or back to us when the outer box gets damaged. I bet it will show up.

I would wait another week or two. I have had a couple of items get "lost" but eventually turn up. Take your tracking info to your local post office, they can do a more advanced tracking than ebay's. Good luck.

i too lost some tractor parts thru the usps.i questioned where they were lost at so I could contact them to retrieve the parts somehow.you would think the lost items,when found,would go into a lost and found area to be claimed.my question never got answered.my thought is the package just didn't disappear and vanish.in my case there was 2 transmission gears missing from a damaged box,there was 2 gears in the box when I got it and 2 were missing.wouldnt common sense tell a person,oh heres a box with gears in it of the truck,and heres 2 gears we found on the trailer floor,surely they must go together,dddduuuhhh.but its the government were talking about

First is the item insured? Anything of value is a MUST!!!! Second, Someone needed for his tractor!!

I hate USPS higher than ups and always breaking and losing things .

I had a some planter plates sent to me and some were broken they were insured but I never could get payment for them from USPS.A local sale barn sent me a check for some calves I sold after about 10 days they issued me another check I got the original check about 5 months later so go figure you might get your parts yet.

Had a photo album sent to me from Colorado. Never got the family photos. 9 ( NINE ) weeks later, there is a note in our box to claim the shipment.

Go FED-EX or UPS! ALWAYS.

I'm going assume it was shipped Priority Mail, since you have a tracking number. Priority Mail is automatically insured. Has the shipper filed a claim? If you're unsure take the tracking number down to your post office and find out what's going on.

Yes the postal service is not what it once was. I ordered a starter a few years back from a guy I knew and all I got was a box. Clearly you could see where the starter had fell out and you could tell the box had been handled by what looked like gorillas. I try to only use them for there flat rate boxes and normal mail

Usps normal mail isn't what it used to be either. We had a big seed payment coming due and Marilyn called the major seed company first before she sent the check to make sure the interest was right. The lady at the seed company told Marilyn she would be better off making a bank transfer instead of sending it in the mail. Seed company lady said too many seed loan payment checks that were sent in plenty of time were hung up in the mail for weeks or months and when the checks finally arrived the bill was overdue and more interest was added. These bills can be in the five and six figures so the interest is fairly substantial even for a month. The customer ends up unhappy with both the mail service and the seed company for tacking on more interest. I would think the seed company would forgive the interest if the date the check was put in the mail could be substantiated but it's still a hassle. This is another reason why employers like to direct deposit pay checks. It's too bad we can't electronically send packages but that's still star wars science fiction.Jim

I use usps Flat Rate nearly every day. For me its the best.

I have worked in shipping and receiving for several years and I could tell you many stories about the different shippers and freight haulers. I have seen shipments just disappear, but when it comes to damaged packages, I have found that the sending party, quite often, does not package items correctly. When you ship anything of any weight, the package needs to be packed as tight as possible so the part won't fly around in the package when the freight company throws it around. Recently my company ordered some keys for a file cabinet from another company about 60 miles away. When they never came my company contacted the sender and when they checked the tracking it showed that the package had been delivered to our company and was signed for by a name that didn't exist in our company. We reordered and about 6 weeks later the original package was delivered with a ship date of 6 weeks earlier. I think someone lied. So there is a slim chance that your package could still show.

After 32 days of NOT delivering a payment for my credit card, I stopped payment on the check and made a phone call to CC company. Payment was taken care of in less than 5 minutes. From now on, NO USPS! an 800 phone call is free.
Probably give my leftover stamps away for Christmas presents.

I send some calendars to Wy. , but the gal at the post office put a NY zip on the tracking ...
It went from Denver to Pa. ... 3 times then from Pa to Flo. then back to Denver .. was rebox and finally made it to Wy. ... a month later and I figure out the mileage was 12,223 miles .//
That's from Pella, Iowa to wy ...
...... mark

Could be worse. UPS won't even look for an item unless the sender asks them to.

Had a similar problem. Returned a leased electronic instrument at the end of the lease via USPS. A week later I got an envelope with shredded parts of the box and a letter asking if I was missing anything. Luckily I had insured it well and the owners of the instrument were very cooperative with me on time and providing documentation to USPS, but it still took 5 months and numerous filings at the Post Office to get it all worked out. While they're not actually the government, they're just as big a pain to deal with.

If you ship or receive much stuff its going to happen. I get it a few times a year both ways I only use USPS for small simple stuff or flat rate. Dealing with insurance at any shipper is a nightmare.

The seller is going to take care of it tomorrow..He is not happy with USPS..

I've seen a few and heard a few, all shippers and haulers make mistakes. My Dad worked for UPS for about 13 years. They had a package go missing, the shipper called and was all upset. Seems they shipped a bar of gold, but didn't want to insure it for it's value so they painted it with lead paint and declared it as lead. UPS lost it, paid them for lead, of course this didn't make them very happy. UPS finally found it, the shipper had wrapped it in paper and stuck a label on it, the label fell off, with no identification it ended up as a doorstop at the terminal until someone figured it out. UPS owned up to the mistake but the folks that shipped it almost paid quite a bit for UPS's mistake. When I lived in Tennessee it was not uncommon for our UPS guy to deliver packages for us to the machine shop up the road and theirs to us, if something wasn't on time we'd call each other and swap packages, our relationship blossomed and we'd call each other when we saw the mis-delivered packages and discuss if UPS was going to deliver them right the next day OR if we'd cruise over and pick them up today. USPS- I sent a Flokati rug from Greece to home, the mailman was a friend of our family, the rug somehow got marked refused and sent back to Greece. Dan (the mailman) says he never saw it, his Mom was the clerk at the local Post Office and said it never made it to the local Post Office, clearly someone took a short cut, it was easier to mark it refused than to do the customs paperwork. Another time I was trying to get some last minute details done to the library we just remodeled before the open house and ordered some hardware from Grainger, when it didn't show up, called them and they tracked it. For some reason it went to Kansas City MO. instead of Marinette Wisconsin, Grainger re-shipped it, next package also went to Kansas City Mo. Cancelled the order and sourced it elsewhere. Both packages eventually showed up they were addressed to Marinette Wisconsin, no explanation was ever given for both packages being shipped to the same wrong address in KC MO. If it falls out of the box it's not USPS or UPS or Fed-Ex's fault it wasn't packed well enough.

Part of the problem with dealing with the post office is the fact they are used to having a monopoly so they aren't familiar with the concept of competition, that and the workers have an awesome Union that insures they aren't responsible for much of anything, these people eventually get promoted into management where they still aren't responsible for anything. They are bureaucratic which in my book means they exist to serve themselves and not a customer and like so much of government and big business decisions are made without the facts being considered and these decisions are uniformly applied across the organization even when they don't fit. When this happens, especially when it's a budget cutting effort the folks that were doing well and working get screwed while the folks that were loafing and not doing there job have plenty of slack they can trim and not effect the operation. This in itself causes people with any work ethic to move on. Also understand the Post Office is partnering with some of the freight companies and they (private firm like Fed-EX) handle the package from either the shipper or a post office to the delivering post office, when this program is used sometimes there is delay because Fed-Ex wants to deliver a big pile to the local post office and may wait a while until they have a tote for that destination.

That's annoying, but I bet it will show up in a couple of days.

They sent one of my ebay finds to a town in the next county. I was about to go ballistic and planned to drive to get it but when I called that office they had sent it back to the main sort facility. It finally arrived about 3 days later.

I have noticed lately that their tracking system is quite unreliable. One thing we ordered from Amazon showed to be sent to Wyoming, yet it arrived at our door. Another time a package showed to be delivered in the same state it was shipped from and then it got here anyway with no other updates. Other times the updates are way behind. It seems to be reasonably accurate about 50% of the time.

Mrs 730 has a good friend who lives in Vegas we bought some pottery type things and sent them to Donna.
We thought we had the stuff packed well not the case everything was broke when Donna got it.

I usually have good luck with USPS, including insurance claims.
Issues will eventually crop up with any shipper.

My experience with UPS insurance claims went like this:
They - "Who packaged it? Oh, not us? Not insured then."
Me - "But I paid for insurance, I have the receipt right here."
They - "Only insured if we packaged it. Sorry."
Me - "This is a lost packaged, not a damaged package!"
They - "So? We didn't package it. Not insured."

My experience with FedEx isn't much better.
With them I just need to find which neighbors yard they threw
the package in. The packages they deliver are rarely at a house
in my area. Just tossed in a yard. Rain or shine.

Hopefully they find your package. It does happen.
I had one delayed for three weeks and when it was delivered
it was marked something to the effect of "Delayed by error".

Well, I had won a bid on eBay, and the seller was a hard head that insisted that he only shipped by FedEx. A few days later, I got a card in the mail that the driver was unable to find my address, and requested me to call and give directions. I called, gave specific directions, and still no package. A day later, another card with the same request. Again I called and gave detailed directions. Another two days passed, and yet another card from FedEx requesting directions. This time, when I called, I stated that this was the third time we are doing this. I started to give directions, and I said wait! I have a better idea! Give it to the UPS man. HE knows where I live!!! Next day, the package arrived.

Just an FYI. Fed-Ex handles most of USPS Parcel Post. The Post Office handles letters. I know this because the transfer station I work out of handles all the Parcel Post for Central Illinois. It all comes in on Fed-Ex trucks and is called Smart Post. Then it is sent out on smaller trucks to the local Post Office. Being that this is the busiest time of the year, I even take Smart Post to help out. Today I had 5 pallets in addition to my regular freight.