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Comment by icelancer | Hacker News Reader

>> While I agree with you about the inconvenience of most residential shipping services, I think people not interacting directly with the industry tend to forget how absolutely huge the business-to-business market still is for UPS. I expect the margins are quite a bit larger for them there as well.

Definitely. The consumer side is less relevant compared to the business side.

We spend tons of money on UPS' insurance products that they must kill us on, but we have no choice, as we send $10k+ packages regularly. USPS' insurance is a complete joke but UPS/FedEx honor theirs pretty regularly, even if there are some hoops to jump.

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as a consumer, i can’t stand the insurance policies of shipping companies. you pay them to ship something, and then you have to pay them more to make sure they actually ship it properly. it’s insane to me. and UPS has gotten exceedingly picky. you cannot insure anything unless you let them pack it. i once tried to insure shipping a synth that i put back into the manufacturer’s own original box with the original packing material. this was then going to be out into a UPS box. the guy wouldn’t insure it because they didn’t pack it. he explained they would have to ship the synth in their own packing and then ship the box separately in the same box. that is just one insane example, but now, it can cost like $70-100 just to ship a normal sized, insured package with them.

one time with the USPS, the mail person folded a large hardcover book in half like a taco to fit it into a PO box. when i called the local post office to complain to a manager, she explained that the shipper didn’t purchase insurance and so they couldn’t do anything. when i explained that was for accidents and not intentional destruction of packages she basically yelled at me and that was that. no follow up, no nothing.

these shipping companies hide behind these insurance policies because they basically can do whatever they want with your package and it’s the only little power you have. and it’s obviously something they make a lot of money off of.

You need to ask for the postmaster general and if that doesn't work escalate up the chain. I've had a few issues with my mail delivery and after one call it was sorted.

Escalate up from the postmaster general? To who, the president?

Sorry I meant your local postmaster. Then up from there.

Had a problem at a previous apartment with people breaking into the physical mailbox and stealing credit cards, then activating and using them for a day before I caught it. Happened a few times to my and a few times to another resident that I talked to about it. Apartment complex is huge (~35 buildings with ~30 units per building) and owned by an even bigger company with dozens of properties around the country. Got the actual mail fraud investigator people to come out and yell at the apartment management about having an improperly-secured mailbox after my talking to them had no effect. The mailboxes were wall-mount indoor units where one big swing-open panel gave access to ~40 mailboxes; the locking mechanism was just a padlock and a slider bar. The slider bar was mounted to drywall with drywall anchors, so to break in, they used a claw hammer or crowbar to just rip the locking mechanism out of the wall, left the door open, threw ripped-open mail everywhere... the apartment maintenance people just filled the holes with drywall filler, then put the drywall anchors back into that. You could pull it out with your fingers, and it looks like that was exactly what happened on subsequent thefts.

Anyway, the apartment management people basically told the USPS inspectors “new mailboxes cost money” and that was that. I moved out a few months later and mentioned that this incident was partially the cause. USPS recommended that I use a post office box to ensure that my mail wouldn’t get stolen, which I understand, but at the same time is pretty ridiculous IMO.

TL;DR USPS was very responsive and sympathetic to my situation, but ultimately couldn’t actually make my huge apartment company secure their mailboxes.

USPS is government-run (please, spare me the "it's a private business" and everyone else that's about to chime in with "well actually") so what do you expect when it comes to customer service? They're the cheapest option in general and deliver faster than UPS/FedEx using Priority Mail (though their Express Mail product sucks compared to the courier services of UPS/FedEx), so people are going to go with them due to Ebay sellers and everyone else abusing flat rate packaging.

Getting USPS to care is impossible. I actually got a reply from Jeff Bezos in addition to a "?" email because Amazon was using USPS on Sundays for delivery, but USPS is unreachable on Sundays and Amazon has no way of contacting them either, so when USPS deliverymen refuse to deliver packages to my very obviously open business on Sunday citing that we weren't there (bullshit), there's nothing I can do. I wrote it up, sent it to Jeff, and they blacklisted USPS for my route on Sundays and now use Amazon drivers.

Unfortunately, if you go through USPS, they don't care. Much like any other government service you use.

Please don’t derail the thread with political rants. In addition to being off-topic it’s based on logical errors, such as assuming your limited personal experience is globally true (for me, s/USPS/UPS/) or that quality is an inherent trait of the concept and constant (this is why Comcast is not usually cited as proof that capitalism cannot work).

It's not a political rant to point out that the USPS operates on a different (and often insensible) plane because it is a government bureau. The poster's comment isn't off topic. Although her/his post is merely anecdotal and not statistically significant, it may ring familiar to others' encounters with that organization. Your post is more of an interruption here than is hers/his. Consider my post as a vector of your derailment.

There was actually a panel discussion on Friday about modernizing the USPS with many different stake holders (Union workers rep, small business owner, European logistics expert). You can check it out here: https://www.c-span.org/video/?447082-1/panelists-discuss-pre...

> It's not a political rant to point out that the USPS operates on a different (and often insensible) plane because it is a government bureau.

Sure it is, that's an inherently political argument to make.

My counterpoint: I ordered a few things from a vendor (Waytek) recently. Waytek ships via UPS exclusively. I chose UPS Ground service which would've gotten the package to me in about a week. UPS got the package to California, to the regional sorting center in California, sent me an email telling me to expect a delivery, and then got the package to Massachusetts that same evening. UPS said they'll deliver the package in another week or so (assuming they don't bounce it back to the east coast). Despite being able to ship it on their dime cross-country in less than a day, they've put the package on the slow boat back to its intended destination. The UPS response has been: keep an eye on the tracking number and take it up with the vendor if you have any issues. Waytek's stance is that it's officially my property and their duty ended when they dropped the package off with THEIR shipping vendor (UPS).

Tell me again how private corporations are inherently more accountable?

Oh, and how about the time UPS accepted a package from a vendor with multiple shipping labels on it. They got the package to the local distribution center (different than my previous post) and kept rescheduling delivery without ever putting it on a truck, contacting myself, or the vendor.

Meanwhile I've ordered replacement parts for the Waytek order from a vendor that ships USPS. The tracking information is showing an estimated delivery date of two days from now (Tuesday), but they're also showing that the package has left the local regional distribution center. That gives me about a 95% chance of having the package in my box 10 AM tomorrow morning (one day early).

> It's not a political rant to point out that the USPS operates on a different (and often insensible) plane because it is a government bureau.

There are two reasons why I called it a rant. The first was begging the question of whether that’s true, as you also made the mistake of doing, since there was no attempt to introduce data or analysis showing that the USPS is substantially worse. Since Amazon famously does that kind of analysis, cares a lot about customer satisfaction, and uses a number of carriers it seems especially unlikely that there’s some huge problem they haven’t noticed.

The second reason, however, is the error of treating the quality of government as constant and inalterable. That’s effectively arguing that there’s no difference between South Sudan and Norway, and it’s what really made me regret wasting space on a lazy rant. Even if it was true, the grownup discussion would be how we should have better management and incentives rather than assuming it can never work, just as reasonable people react to a bad experience with a company by supporting boycotts, regulation, or legal improvements rather than saying the private business model can never work.

The fake missed delivery notices USPS sends are widely reported in the media, Amazon is powerless to do anything and probably doesn’t care much to begin with, they change items from guaranteed to “expected” when USPS ships them.

I posted my account above, but in my case, USPS cared very much, but was ultimately unable to get my awful apartment company to install more secure mailboxes since they kept getting broken into.

>as a consumer, i can’t stand the insurance policies of shipping companies. you pay them to ship something, and then you have to pay them more to make sure they actually ship it properly. it’s insane to me. and UPS has gotten exceedingly picky. you cannot insure anything unless you let them pack it. i once tried to insure shipping a synth that i put back into the manufacturer’s own original box with the original packing material. this was then going to be out into a UPS box. the guy wouldn’t insure it because they didn’t pack it. he explained they would have to ship the synth in their own packing and then ship the box separately in the same box. that is just one insane example, but now, it can cost like $70-100 just to ship a normal sized, insured package with them.

I think you're running into the policies of your local, privately-owned UPS store. I insure stuff with UPS regularly, with zero interaction with UPS staff. I login to the website, print the label and go. There's no UPS person approving or rejecting my insurance request.

this has been my experience when shipping musical equipment that i have sold on eBay and such at multiple UPS stores in two different states. although, i have not done it through the online system. it’s going to be pretty frustrating if it’s differently enforced there. and also confusing.

have you ever had to get an insurance payment on a damaged shipment? when shipping this musical equipment, damage can be catastrophic if the insurance coverage is rejected after the fact once a UPS person comes into the picture.

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