US Postal System

BabysCoffee

Anyone know anything about the US Postal system?

Is it like An Post whereby if they go to deliver a parcel and the recipient is not there, will they leave a slip of paper to say they called and ask the recipient to pick it up in the local post office???

silja

It depends on the parcel/ sender; they may just leave it by your front door/ under the porch/ by the garage. But if it requires a signature, and most international parcel (ie if it's something from Ireland), yes, they will put a slip in your mailbox and you go pick up.

BabysCoffee

silja wrote: »

It depends on the parcel/ sender; they may just leave it by your front door/ under the porch/ by the garage. But if it requires a signature, and most international parcel (ie if it's something from Ireland), yes, they will put a slip in your mailbox and you go pick up.

Thanks Silja

ProudDUB

You may not be sent to your local post office to pick it up. You may be sent to your local sorting office. They have the space to store parcels, the local post office may not.

Unless the sender specifically requested a proof of delivery signature, or insurance on the item when they sent it, the post man will not need a signature, even if it is sent internationally. If you are not home when they attempt to deliver it, the post man will either leave it out outside your door, if he feels it will be safe there, or he'll leave you a "sorry we missed you note" and bring it back to the depot. There is no guaranteed rule of thumb for what they do. Generally, I have found that post men take a lot more care with items that need a signature, than the ones that are sent by general post, with no proof required at the other end that it got there safely.

Do you live in an apartment complex, where there is a mail station where everyone goes to pick up their post? If you do, there may be large, locked storage lockers there. If the post man has a parcel that can't fit inside the residents mail box, he will leave the parcel in the locker & leave the key for it in your mail box.

BabysCoffee

ProudDUB wrote: »

You may not be sent to your local post office to pick it up. You may be sent to your local sorting office. They have the space to store parcels, the local post office may not.

Unless the sender specifically requested a proof of delivery signature, or insurance on the item when they sent it, the post man will not need a signature, even if it is sent internationally. If you are not home when they attempt to deliver it, the post man will either leave it out outside your door, if he feels it will be safe there, or he'll leave you a "sorry we missed you note" and bring it back to the depot. There is no guaranteed rule of thumb for what they do. Generally, I have found that post men take a lot more care with items that need a signature, than the ones that are sent by general post, with no proof required at the other end that it got there safely.

Do you live in an apartment complex, where there is a mail station where everyone goes to pick up their post? If you do, there may be large, locked storage lockers there. If the post man has a parcel that can't fit inside the residents mail box, he will leave the parcel in the locker & leave the key for it in your mail box.

Thanks for that info.

I sent a parcel to the States on the 19th. However have now discovered there will be no one at home until the 29th. It was a private house that it was sent to.

Just wondering what will happen......I don't want the parcel to come back to Ireland and have to be resent!

ProudDUB

If you only sent it on the 19th, you have nothing to worry about, as odds are it won't even be in the US yet. Parcels sent from here go to a Royal Mail hub near Heathrow. Her Maj then ships them across the Atlantic for An Post. It takes about 10 days to 2 weeks for a parcel sent from here to reach the US. It takes a lot longer at this time of year, due to the sheer volume of items being shipped and the fact that An Post, the Royal Mail and the US Postal Service will all shut down for a period over Xmas.

If you still have your receipt that the post office here gave you when you posted it, it will have a tracking number on it. Go to the An Post website and you can track the items progress from when it leaves Ireland, to when it arrive and leaves the UK hub in Heathrow, to when it arrives in the US and is dispatched for delivery there. Unless you sent it by priority post, I'd say it will arrive some time in early January.

BabysCoffee

ProudDUB wrote: »

If you only sent it on the 19th, you have nothing to worry about, as odds are it won't even be in the US yet. Parcels sent from here go to a Royal Mail hub near Heathrow. Her Maj then ships them across the Atlantic for An Post. It takes about 10 days to 2 weeks for a parcel sent from here to reach the US. It takes a lot longer at this time of year, due to the sheer volume of items being shipped and the fact that An Post, the Royal Mail and the US Postal Service will all shut down for a period over Xmas.

If you still have your receipt that the post office here gave you when you posted it, it will have a tracking number on it. Go to the An Post website and you can track the items progress from when it leaves Ireland, to when it arrive and leaves the UK hub in Heathrow, to when it arrives in the US and is dispatched for delivery there. Unless you sent it by priority post, I'd say it will arrive some time in early January.

Thanks ProudDub. I had a feeling it wouldn't arrive for awhile.

I never knew about the way it made its route to the States!

I'll see if I have the receipt and look up the number.

BabysCoffee

BabysCoffee wrote: »

Thanks for that info.

I sent a parcel to the States on the 19th. However have now discovered there will be no one at home until the 29th. It was a private house that it was sent to.

Just wondering what will happen......I don't want the parcel to come back to Ireland and have to be resent!

Just checked the Track and Trace on my receipt - it arrived on the 27th!!! (after an attempted delivery on the 26th!)

8 days over the busiest time of the year!! Wow

It has been signed for by a relative of the person I was sending it to. I think she has been in checking the house......

Thanks for all your help!

ProudDUB

Wow. 8 days is impressive indeed. Good idea to ask for a signature, as they'll get priority over regular post. Glad it arrived safe.

BabysCoffee

ProudDUB wrote: »

Wow. 8 days is impressive indeed. Good idea to ask for a signature, as they'll get priority over regular post. Glad it arrived safe.

Very happy it arrived safely too.

I never realised that it would have to be signed for.

8 days -well worth the €40 it cost!

clairefontaine

ProudDUB wrote: »

Wow. 8 days is impressive indeed. Good idea to ask for a signature, as they'll get priority over regular post. Glad it arrived safe.

8 days is impressive if on the West Coast, not impressive if NYC or Boston is the destination.

Also, I have found that sending things express from Ireland takes longer than regular post and vice versa.

iusedtoknow

I sent a package by normal mail from San Francisco to Ireland - arrived in 5 days which impressed me

ProudDUB

I've been sending things from both sides of the pond for nearly 20 years, and in my humble opinion, items send from the US always take a lot less time to get here, than items sent to the States do. I dunno if it is because the US postal service is just bigger and better organized than the An Post/Royal Mail combo over on this side are. Or perhaps it's because items sent from the US are sent directly here, bypassing the UK, but items sent from here, go via the UK. Either way, things that I send to my sister in Seattle from Ireland, always seem to get to her, an awful lot slower than things that she sends me. And it was the same when I lived in the US and, I was sending things back to Ireland.

InTheTrees

A little off topic but did any else get caught up in the UPS and FedEx delivery debacle over xmas?

Absolute horror. We spent extra on shipping and then spent two days waiting as FedEx failed to deliver on time. Absolute mess. Both carriers are now offering refunds as damage control.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/12/26/257271366/apologies-promises-from-ups-and-fedex-about-delivery-delays

iusedtoknow

InTheTrees wrote: »

A little off topic but did any else get caught up in the UPS and FedEx delivery debacle over xmas?

Absolute horror. We spent extra on shipping and then spent two days waiting as FedEx failed to deliver on time. Absolute mess. Both carriers are now offering refunds as damage control.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/12/26/257271366/apologies-promises-from-ups-and-fedex-about-delivery-delays

Yep...my wife's gift was languishing up in Sacramento for days before christmas (arrived there on the 20th). I phoned fedex and they said if I could get up there I could collect it from the depot. Went up on christmas eve, got it AND our shipping costs were refunded.

These things happen, it didn't ruin christmas and I'm always ready to go to Sacramento. It wasn't the driver's fault, it wasn't the depots fault. I blame the idiots that left shopping to the last minute (like me). The vitriol that was being thrown at the poor drivers via social media was pretty horrible.

silja

It wasn't the drivers fault, but it WAS the companies fault. "The timing of Thanksgiving and then snow"... yeah both these things happen every year.

clairefontaine

silja wrote: »

It wasn't the drivers fault, but it WAS the companies fault. "The timing of Thanksgiving and then snow"... yeah both these things happen every year.

There was a really short gap between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

I think Thanksgiving should be moved back to September. It's way too close to Christmas.

iusedtoknow

agreed that the gap was pretty close between thanksgiving/christmas, though it shouldn't really matter considering that Thanksgiving isn't really a gift giving thing, and everything gets back to normal pretty quickly afterwards

Also agree with Silja...the company should have planned better, or closed their depots to new shipments or something. That said, one of the funniest things I saw on local news was a family giving out about fedex because they had to tell their kids about santa not existing because the presents were going to arrive . Made me titter anyway.

InTheTrees

Oh yeah I wouldnt blame the drivers.

There's also the greed of the Online sellers who were promising short delivery times very unrealistically.

InTheTrees

iusedtoknow wrote: »

Also agree with Silja...the company should have planned better,.

F'ing FedEx. They told us for two days before xmas that our stuff was "out for delivery" so we stayed home and waited, thinking that as we'd paid the fifty extra dollars for fast shipping that it would actually be "out for delivery".

It wasnt. SO thats just bad organization, the information was incorrect, so never mind short seasons or weather. And having to stay home all day for two days right before christmas was tough.

:mad:

(i'm over it now though...)

rockonollie

InTheTrees wrote: »

A little off topic but did any else get caught up in the UPS and FedEx delivery debacle over xmas?

Absolute horror. We spent extra on shipping and then spent two days waiting as FedEx failed to deliver on time. Absolute mess. Both carriers are now offering refunds as damage control.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/12/26/257271366/apologies-promises-from-ups-and-fedex-about-delivery-delays

There's as much fault with amazon.....they were offering 2 day shipping for anyone that signed up for their "prime" service (1 month trial free)....pretty much anyone that was doing last minute shopping signed up and completely flooded UPS with 2-day shipping orders.

As for the OP......glad your package arrived. As with any service, you can be blessed or not depending on your carrier, some are fantastic, some not so much.........ours is quite good, we had a package delivered while we were on vacation (it's a quiet road, so she generally leaves them by our garage door), when she drove by the following day she saw it was still out so she took it back to the post office and left a collection notice on the door.

rockonollie

InTheTrees wrote: »

F'ing FedEx. They told us for two days before xmas that our stuff was "out for delivery" so we stayed home and waited, thinking that as we'd paid the fifty extra dollars for fast shipping that it would actually be "out for delivery".

It wasnt. SO thats just bad organization, the information was incorrect, so never mind short seasons or weather. And having to stay home all day for two days right before christmas was tough.

:mad:

(i'm over it now though...)

It most likely was out for delivery.......they overload their vans so much that the drivers don't get to finish their route, so leftover packages go back to the depot, back on the van the following day, same thing keeps happening until they have time to get through their whole route......

We're near the end of a delivery route, so it happens to us every now and then during busy times.