USPS Priority Mail Lens Shipments Gone Missing?

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RobertOToole
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Re: USPS Priority Mail Lens Shipments Gone Missing?

Post by RobertOToole »

chris_ma wrote:
Sat Feb 20, 2021 12:37 pm

.....actually most of the really cool cameras already are becoming more expensive :/.....
A few years ago a friend in Japan told me that the large camera shops in Hong Kong and Shanghai sent buyers to Tokyo. They would hit all the used shops and ask for all the mint f/1.2,f/1.4, Zeiss, Leica, and Nikon glass, and rare APO lenses to be boxed up and they gladly paid the asking price without asking for a single cent discount. This was all sent back to China where prices were 50-100%+ higher than Tokyo. I was told they cleaned out all the shops.

I don't know if it's true of not but it's just something I was told. Looking at prices on eBay, the camera shops in Hong Kong are always 100-300% higher than anyone else so it does make some sense.

Best,

PeteM
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Re: USPS Priority Mail Lens Shipments Gone Missing?

Post by PeteM »

The USPS has faced several issues in the past year. A former head who wanted to gut it -- and cut costs and equipment. Exceptional package volume due to Covid. Employees sick with Covid or facing quarantine - replaced by clueless temps just making up or ignoring tracking information. Plus the weather.

Our own service was especially bad when our regular guy was out - particularly scan information that was flat out wrong. It's as if all packages were now quantum entangled with two or more states of being - sometimes neither of them actually possible. Delivery timing and scan accuracy is now once again quite good when our regular guy came back.

Somewhat hard to blame the temps - I'd see some working in the dark at 8pm and not much of a clue about their route.

It's no better with UPS. I'm following a microscope that started in Durham, NC, went to West Virginia and Tennessee, then to Ohio, and as of a couple days ago was back in North Carolina. Apparently out on a few states road trip --- and no word if it will attempt to make it to the West Coast. Our regular driver routinely apologizes for late packages.

Stuff from overseas is a crap shoot. Same seller, same day, one package from Russia makes it in a couple weeks. The other takes three months. Ditto from Germany. Still waiting on a package from China after 3 months. Smaller package from the same seller here two months ago.

Fed Ex Ground is dependent upon contract drivers - at least one of whom thought it a good idea to pitch a package multiply marked "Fragile" almost the 40 feet from our drive to the front door. Made it about 35' of the 40'. Good news is that, somewhat rarely, the seller packed it well.

Just this morning one of Fed Ex Ground's contract drivers in a tall Sprinter van managed to crash into our drive-though (if under 8') carport -- in too much of a hurry to wonder "can I make it under the roof?" Only good news (for us) is that the Sprinter's roof "lost" in its battle with a 4" x 16" glulam beam. It will need a new paint job, but unlike the van, no body work.

Good news in all of this is that most stuff e-v-e-n-t-u-a-l-l-y arrives.

klevin
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Re: USPS Priority Mail Lens Shipments Gone Missing?

Post by klevin »

I've routinely had packages held for a week or more at the regional sorting hubs. I even had one case recently where a package was held at the hub in Springfield MA (I'm in SW NH) for a week, shipped down to Connecticut, back to Springfield, held for a few more days, and then shipped to me.

Their tracking is not very informative. Most of the time, your package is not lost. It's just sitting somewhere in the sorting complex waiting to be scanned at the start of the next step.

The worst, btw is UPS mail innovations. It's often the lowest cost shipping option for retailers, and is where UPS (with lousy tracking) hauls the package to your regional USPS sorting hub then hands it off. USPS evidently treats these packages as low priority...

dmillard
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Re: USPS Priority Mail Lens Shipments Gone Missing?

Post by dmillard »

Two weeks ago I received a package from Shanghai in 5 days via DHL. By contrast, our post offices in central Texas just reopened this morning after a week's inactivity.

https://communityimpact.com/austin/cent ... ce-feb-16/

RobertOToole
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Re: USPS Priority Mail Lens Shipments Gone Missing?

Post by RobertOToole »

Update.

It's miraculous! The first working day after I opened a case they "found" it.

No but seriously looks like opening a case on the USPS site helps I guess. #-o


USPS-1.jpg

RobertOToole
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Re: USPS Priority Mail Lens Shipments Gone Missing?

Post by RobertOToole »

They found the second package also, another USPS miracle!

#-o #-o

UPS-2.jpg

RobertOToole
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Re: USPS Priority Mail Lens Shipments Gone Missing?

Post by RobertOToole »

This is what I did for future reference if you have a late USPS delivery, 5 days late for USPS priority.

Go to https://www.usps.com/help/missing-mail.htm

Go to here and hit the start your form button


USPS-3.jpg

Scarodactyl
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Re: USPS Priority Mail Lens Shipments Gone Missing?

Post by Scarodactyl »

Back in Novembwr I mailed a raman spectrometer to Australia. In mid december it arrived in....Burkina Faso. It took over a month and multiple cases to get them to return it to me. Fortunately I had another I could send via fedex in the mean time which arrived in 4 days.
But I still love the USPS and I am unhappy that some people in government seem intent on sabotaging it.

RobertOToole
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Re: USPS Priority Mail Lens Shipments Gone Missing?

Post by RobertOToole »

Scarodactyl wrote:
Mon Feb 22, 2021 1:30 pm
Back in Novembwr I mailed a raman spectrometer to Australia. In mid december it arrived in....Burkina Faso. It took over a month and multiple cases to get them to return it to me. Fortunately I had another I could send via fedex in the mean time which arrived in 4 days.
But I still love the USPS and I am unhappy that some people in government seem intent on sabotaging it.
Oh no! #-o

Last year when HK was suffering from demonstrations DHL re-routed shipments the other way round, the long way, middle-east, Germany, then across the Atlantic and a box with lenses with my name on it, still only took 3-4 days to reach LA. For $29. :shock:

Best,

Robert

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