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Comment by chrisBob | Hacker News Reader

One thing this doesn't account for is fraudulent delivery reports. In my area a large percentage of my USPS deliveries are reported as delivered around 6pm on the scheduled delivery day, but I can't find the package anywhere. Then it suddenly turns up the next day. People on NextDoor also report seeing this regularly.

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I had the same experience (especially in populous metro areas like NY). It's not just with USPS, but also with FedEx.

I called FedEx support and they explained me why this happens. Turns out, people who deliver packages/mail have strict deadline to deliver their packages and on days when there are just too many for them to finish delivering everything, they mark it as delivered and actually deliver the package on the day after.

Wait, you're telling me that FedEx support explained that their drivers are defrauding their customers?

FedEx contracts out a lot of last mile delivery for non-guaranteed packages to USPS. It's possible the rep was referring to that on the phone. I too have noticed USPS delivery notifications to be completely worthless for the same reasons.

If I send something via DHL to my data center, I have to add the data centers PO Box to the delivery address because DHL hands it off to USPS. USPS won't deliver it to the address for who knows what reason. Someone at the data center has to drive into town and pick it up at the PO Box.

Sorting this out the first time was me spending hours on the phone calling between DHL and USPS to find out where the package was and what was happening.

Even more inane is that USPS uses a ~20 digit number for tracking packages. Imagine reading that on the phone to a customer support person. I can't believe nobody thought to use base-32 encoding [0].

[0] https://github.com/stickfigure/unsuck/blob/b4dff541d756303ca...

Same thing happened to me. It was a pretty expensive laptop too. Went from a day we were set to be home, to the next day when nobody was home but we couldn't change how it was being delivered because "it was already delivered" despite it not showing up and them admitting the same thing as above.

I had USPS report a package "delivered" but it never showed up. Waited a few days, contacted the vendor who shipped out a replacement (it was a couple of bucks of mechanical bits).

Two months later I open up the mailbox and there's the original shipment.

I have to wonder if they actually track anything. It feels more like they make an estimate of the delivery route/time and play it back to you regardless of whether it's actually happening.

I personally think they do actually track things, but I would guess the postal workers are held to some kind of metric for delivery times. I think if they know they don't have the time to actually deliver your package then they'll often mark it as delivered when it hasn't been, then they just deliver it the next day. In your case it sounds like maybe your package got lost somewhere in the truck after they had already marked it as delivered.

This is all speculation based on my experiences with USPS.

I had this happening to me as well.

It defeats the whole purpose of tracking.

If employees are doing this, this means something else should change, either extend delivery times, hire more people, optimize how things are done etc

Agreed. And not to single out USPS here either, I've absolutely had FedEx drivers sneak up to the door to hang a "We attempted delivery" tag without ringing the bell. I assume they're running out of time and don't want to wait to see if someone answers the door or not.

I’ve consistently seems this exact behavior on every package delivered by usps lately. It shows up typically the next day but twice it took multiple days to find its way to my mailbox.

And I saw someone else’s note about it being redlivered by an individual; we use locked boxes here that the mail carrier has a master key to the back, they are the only one getting in easily.

Hmm interesting. I had a package I mailed to a relative stolen off their porch and subsequently did a moderately deep dive with USPS staff to try to identify the thief. Those folks told me that there is GPS on the delivery vehicle/handheld scanner such that they have the time and location of the delivery event, and the location of the vehicle at the time. That story seems inconsistent with yours.

I get about 2-5 packages a day delivered to my home, and USPS regularly exhibits this behaviour. The delivery tracker states a package is delivered, though the package doesn't appear until hours or even a day later.

Is it really inconsistent? The technology is there to investigate if someone raises a stink, but if no complaint is made, no one investigates/correlates delivery reporting vs the data you mention.

I honestly believe many delivery drivers (not just USPS, but Amazon, UPS, FedEx, etc) are brazen because they get away with it 99% of the time.

I agree, i've had not insignificant amount of delivered then show up three days later packages with USPS over the past 5 or so years. Mostly business deliveries, but i've had a few I had to report as lost to the shipper. In a couple instances we've had things show up two months or so later found. Which I suppose happens, but I've only had one UPS package lost in the same time frame and none for fedex.

At my house we have a communal mailbox bank (which seems to be normal now for most new construction). I would bet that 1/4 packages of mine are delivered to the wrong box / placed in the wrong box. So some of it now can at least be attributed to those mistakes.

USPS said they delivered my package on Sunday, but it magically showed up Wednesday.

Fwiw on several occasions I've had packages delivered to the wrong address (e.g. 200 East Main not 200 West Main) that were obviously "redelivered" by whoever lives at that address. This could explain your findings perhaps?

I live in a rural area (this time of year I can only see one other house from my house), and I have had a few delivery people complain that they couldn't find my house when looking for it on East Joy Rd instead of West Joy, but the fact that my address doesn't exist on the other side helps. I also know most of my neighbors and I am pretty sure none of them are walking the packages over.

It is possible that this is what is happening, but I don't think it is likely.

Personally I experience this way more with Fedex - literally its nearly every time. I haven't had this happen except for a couple of times with USPS over the last 2-3 years (been in the same apartment for about that long).

I had that happen with UPS at my last address: One of my relatives put the wrong address on a box, and then UPS decided to deliver the next 5 boxes to that same wrong address. At least it was consistent and I knew where to look.

I have the same experience, with one or two USPS fake deliveries. None from UPS that I can recall (but fewer packages overall than USPS). Meanwhile Fedex Ground has seemingly adopted a policy of doing whatever it takes to mark a package as delivered, including just leaving them down by the road where they can be easily stolen.

It's all down to your individual carriers and local depot management though. My local Fedex Ground depot doesn't seem to care at all, so my only recourse is to avoid having things I care about shipped Fedex. Which by itself is another reason the USPS needs to be kept operating - so at least we have three options instead of the characteristic duopoly of modern antitrust enforcement.

It depends on what stage of delivery they're scanning the packages. I used to ship a lot of small packages for a small business, and noticed:

- they don't get scanned into tracking until they get processed at the facility, which can take a day

- they sometimes get scanned "out" when they're loaded onto the truck, rather than at delivery point.

Since the directive is now to leave on time, rather than wait for all the packages to make it onto the truck, I bet they're getting scanned out and then waiting on the floor for the next day's truck to actually get delivered.

UPS/FedEx etc use handheld scanners at the delivery point, so they have to deal with employees faking delivery and making up for it later.

The next day would be amazing. I've seen things reported delivered that only turn up a week or more later. Only with USPS

I see this so routinely with USPS delivery that I now assume "ah, this will arrive some time tomorrow" when I get the "Delivered" notification.

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