UPS and FedEx delivery problems in rural areas (home, best, snow)
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Side note: A friend moved to a town where their postmaster set a policy that NO mail gets delivered to houses. Everybody has to get a PO box. Nobody knows if this is a legitimate edict.
I live in a rural upper midwest state, and came from a different rural area in an upper midwest state. I have always had PO Boxes in both places.
Over the past two years, UPS and FedEx have started to deliver packages to the Post Office instead of directly to my home. I guess this is their policy now for packages from some sources. Yesterday the Postmaster went into a rigamarole explaining to me that it has something to do with it being a savings in postage costs for UPS/FedEx. I don't understand, but OK.
This is a problem for me for two reasons.
1) Not every vendor will allow you to put a PO Box in their order form. They say "We do not deliver to PO Boxes." But the reality is, where I live EVERYTHING is delivered to the PO Box. This has meant that I am having to pay postage on these deliveries because they don't have the PO box # on them, and the PO considers this a "change of address" thing.
2) I'm now having to carry really heavy packages from the Post Office to my car, then from the barn where I park to my house. I'm old now, and it was so much easier when the UPS/FedEx guys carried the heavy stuff!
This was never an issue where I used to live. Is this something UPS and FedEx are doing everywhere now, or is it just true in the area where I am now? Was my postmaster making up an excuse, or is this a real thing that is affecting everyone everywhere?
Rural dwellers, what's your recent experience with deliveries from UPS and FedEx. Do they still come to your door or do they deliver to your PO?
The only problem I ever had with rural delivery was when Fedex or UPS(I cannot remember which it was) left a new Martin guitar on my front porch, exposed for all the world to see. It was supposed to be “signature required” but they dropped it off when no one was at home! Fortunately it was only there for a couple of hours before I got him.
Side note: A friend moved to a town where their postmaster set a policy that NO mail gets delivered to houses. Everybody has to get a PO box. Nobody knows if this is a legitimate edict.
That is quite legitimate. There are many small towns that do not have home delivery for mail.
^ Yes, where I lived before, everyone had to have a PO box because there was no street/road delivery at all. Where I live now I got a PO Box because the township snow plow driver kept taking out the mailbox post on the side of the road, and I decided not to pay for a 4th new mailbox and post. (I couldn't move it further back - if I did the route driver wouldn't have been able to reach it from his car.)
Thanks for all the responses, everyone. Sounds like the two companies are doing it for business reasons in a lot of locations now, though in not all locations. Those of you who still get all your UPS/FedEx deliveries to your door, cross your fingers that it stays that way!
Fortunately, my name is short. I'm going to start putting my PO Box # in the name line, and hope the PO people think to look there instead of charging me dough-re-mi for a "change of address".
I'm in a large South Jersey town. My daughter was temporary help with UPS during Christmas; they used to go to the post office to unload boxes so it happens here too. I never asked her specifics though on what types of packages get shipped the rest of the way with USPS and what do they deliver because she worked our area too. She said the trucks had so many packages that they would both run to deliver them until 8 or 9 at night.
That is quite legitimate. There are many small towns that do not have home delivery for mail.
??? I thought that was the purpose of the "Rural Free Delivery" legislation a century ago-- home delivery for all. Opponents in Congress thought it would bust the budget. Remember the Ingalls always going to the PO to collect mail on "Little House on the Prairie?"
It's a crapshoot where we live where our packages will be delivered. UPS is actually the best at getting our packages to our house of the three, but sometimes Amazon uses smart post and I'm stuck going to the post office in town.
We live on a dirt road in rural Wyoming, we have a P.O. box number that we include with our address. Our mail goes to the P.O box because they do not deliver the mail to houses here, this was a huge adjustment for me when we moved here.
Fed Ex delivers to our house, but they are pretty unreliable and they leave here packages by our garage on the ground, instead of UPS who walks the packages to our door and even rings our bell. Gasp!
USPS will just put the package in our P.O. box or if it's too big, then we have to pick it up from the post office in town.
Just one of those things about rural living. It gets crazy around the holidays with everyone trying to figure out just where their packages were delivered too.
My old neighborhood didn't have USPO home delivery, so we got free P.O.boxes.
UPS and FedEx had no trouble delivering there, but Amazon did start using just USPO or the last mile delivery, so I had to pick up at the P.O.
Since the P.O. sent back any mail with just my street address, and some vendors won't accept any address that includes "P.O.", I used my street address with #mypoboxnumber as a second line. To wit,
Steiconi
123 Boondocks Lane
#78908
Hicktown, BI 12345
Now I have a mailbox on the nearest paved street, but the P.O. has had endless problems with delivering my mail. The previous owner didn't get mail here, so it took a while for the P.O. to figure out we were here.
To make matters worse, we are the only house on our street in our zip code (the street ends just past our house, then resumes on the other side of a hill). So somebody in our P.O. sees the street name and sends it to the other P.O. which sends it back. Sometimes the package bounces around for a couple of weeks before I get it. Sometimes they lose it somewhere along the way.
Side note: A friend moved to a town where their postmaster set a policy that NO mail gets delivered to houses. Everybody has to get a PO box. Nobody knows if this is a legitimate edict.
First step would be a kind note to the Poastmaster, then one to my Senator, I'll bet that issue will be resolved fast
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