Why I Hate USPS

So back in December 2010 I decided to move to North Carolina..... This is the story about why me and the US Postal Service (hereafter referred to as USPS) will never be friends again.

My car was staying in the western part of the country so how was I supposed to get my "stuff" from Utah to North Carolina? Ship it of course! My sister had gone through a similar thing a few years before and it had worked for her, so I bought some boxes, tape, and bubble wrap and went to work.

Now I will put a little bit of a disclaimer because I was aware of the option to place additional insurance on a box that I was shipping. But since I was already spending a fortune to ship my boxes and because most of them had just a bunch of jumbled stuff- I tended away from spending the additional $10+ to insure the boxes except on the ones that actually housed expensive items. But I did make sure to pack the boxes well and to not over-load them or to make them too heavy.

I finally got all packed up and everything shipped out. Boxes started arriving in NC and I felt good about them all arriving safely. Until I arrived home and Christmas came and went and I realized that 2 of my boxes had yet to arrive. Meaning that 2 of my 3 foot tall boxes that weighed about 40+lbs were MIA. Upset, I went to the post office to see if there was anything to be done. It was about that time that I learned about the option to "track" boxes for an additional dollar or two (something that was never mentioned, especially for such an inexpensive price, when I did all the shipping). However, since my boxes were not insured and did not have tracking numbers there was nothing that they could do.

I do not understand why the postal system has NO way to track boxes within their own systems. It seems terribly irresponsible to make someone purchase a service to ensure that the postal service actually does the job that you paid them for in the first place. Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous.

Well, a week or two after Christmas my boxes finally showed up! They were wrapped completely in tape as if the boxes had bust open. BOTH boxes were missing over 50% of the contents and the boxes had been filled with random junk and literally TRASH to make up the difference in space- I ended up with some of what had been in someone else’s box. I lost a wrap skirt collection from 5 different countries, several favorite trinkets, a number of documents (pay stubs, etc), and a lot of my favorite tops. One of the boxes had been a "last minute" box that I did not think I was going to have to send so it was filled with some of my favorite clothes, shoes, and coats. Goodie.

Even though they claim that boxes have some sort of automatic insurance do you think I am going to receive one dime for my items that they lost? Nope.

Needless to say; I loathe USPS now. I’ll be using UPS or FedEx for EVERYTHING except unimportant letters from now on. Ug.