USPS is broken---I hope my ducks were stolen!!

[BirdBrain]

The USPS beats all I have ever heard. I bought 11 ducks. They were hatched out and mailed on Monday from just east of Oklahoma city. 5 weeks ago I ordered 6 ducks priority mail from the same breeder and they arrived in Alaska in 26 hours. One of them died in transit so this time I ordered more and paid extra for Express mail so hopefully they would have better handling and get here atleast as fast as the others but guaranteed in 48 hours. They left the breeder's post office at 3pm on Monday. By Tuesday afternoon I was beginning to get worried as the tracking system did not show any updates until 5 pm Oklahoma time. There have been NO updates since. I have no ducks and no one can tell me where they are. I have spent many hours at the airport post office over the last two days waiting for a box of lethargic ducks to come in--prepared with sugar water and growgel and still nothing.

I have talked to everyone I can possibly think of at USPS and no one knows anything. The lady who handles the express mail at the airport distribution center and everyone at the unloading dock have been outstanding...BUT...there is nothing they can do, nor have they been able to track down my ducks. Finally yesterday after they would have been over 72 hours old and still no news I came home spent and took a nap. The kids and I are horribly dissappointed in both this situation and that this was the breeder's last hatch for the year and no replacements will be available until next spring. All I can hope for is that someone in the system saw a box of cute ducks and wanted them more than I did and stole them. I hope they are having a good life somewhere instead of decaying in a box routed who knows where.

 

[call ducks]

Quote:
wow... sorry about this.

 

[Debbi]

Sorry to hear that. At least with the Express Mail, you can file a claim and get your money back. Things like this happen all the time, but when you consider the BILLIONS of pieces of mail and parcels that go through the system, it is rather an infrequent thing. Of course, it doesn't feel that way when you are the one it happens to! I worked for the PO for 8+ years as a rural carrier. When I first started, there was more human contact than there is now. When they really started getting automated, that's when the problems really cropped up. Computers don't care if it books or ducks, they all get read the same way. Scanning the parcels is an "iffy" thing. Some instances, they are not required to do it at all. Like with "Delivery Confirmation"; they don't have to scan it until DELIVERED. But, with Express Mail, it is supposed to be scanned at every stop along the way. I would start at the place of the last scan, someone between there and the next stop dropped the ball! Ask them to put a tracer on it. I hope it turns out in your (and the duckies) favor!

 

[chickabator]

I know how you feel we had an order of chicks coming they were shipped on a monday suppose to have been here wed. they arrived on friday all of them but 12 were dead, six made it they replaced my order but still . Now we are fighting another battle I bought a cast iron skillet 6-30 still has not arrived it has been almost 3 weeks now all tracking says is it left cinn. it arrived there on the 5th then again on the 9th then left there the 9th we only live about 200 miles from there. sad thing is seller doesn't want to give me back my money.

 

[BirdBrain]

One thing I did learn is that if an express mail package does not arrive within 7 days of the promised delivery date and time, you can file a stolen parcel claim with USPS form 1000. I am going to go right down there Wednesday afternoon and do so if I have still heard nothing. My postal gal said it would actually be better from an insurance claim stand point if it never showed up. Unfortunately, if they are dead and floating around some place, they will begin to get fragrant and I think the PO is still obligated to deliver them.

 

[Debbi]

Yup, they sure are! As are seven year old (or way older!) letters. I used to deliver to a man who was going through an extremely bitter divorce. His wife would send him DEAD RATS in the mail. I would bring the parcel to my Supervisor and ask if I had to deliver it, "oh yes". Needless to say, all of her parcels rode in the BACK of my pickup!

 

[BirdBrain]

About those ducks.... I REALLY hope that they found a new home along the way. As of Friday they were supposed to be in Seattle. They never found their way to Alaska. Today the USPS called me and said they had lost my package and to begin right away the filing for insurance as they had no idea where the package was. What a confidence builder.

 

[pdsavage]

I belive in a few more days if they had it they would find it by smell(not to sound cruel),so hopefully they found a new home.

 

[Boyd]

Quote:
Actually it isn't. Usually see 2-3 posts a week like this on this board and others. How many other folks not from BYC have this happen? Only 50k of us on here..

 

[Goose and Fig]

Yes- I agree with Boyd. It's happened to me several times- in fact almost every time. I hope they're OK- where ever they are