We thought is might be good to have an overall thread to deal with USPS issues that come up from time to time.
To start this one off, we wanted to note that, on USPS.com, the message function to get alerts from USPS about the movement of a package doesn’t seem to be working today.
We have tried a couple of times with a couple of different emails and can not get the confirmation that is normally posted on the site after submitting that lets you know your request has gone through.
Can confirm this is not working for us either.
We have also had 2 incoming packages bouncing between regional POs and the distribution center. I had to open a case with USPS to get it to stop and the packages are supposed to be delivered today and tomorrow.
-Ana
texting function stopped working starting last Thursday.
I have had 6 orders go missing in the last month. This is not normal for me. Maybe I get a missing order once every few months but I think those are porch pirates. This time I think it’s internal. They were all deposited inside the box at the post office. Not eligible for purchase protection because they never got scanned in. Was told not to worry because they will be scanned in eventually along their journey….but it’s been a month. Taking a peek at other past orders and a lot were not getting initial scans till they hit the distribution center 
. Normally it would scan at the little post office, and if not then it would scan at the big post office.
Had to issue two big refunds since my supplier is screwing me on supplies (Spoonflower is not printing fabric correctly and thus now is undependable for me not sure if it will be fixed, general consensus in Spoonflower groups and support emails is that the bad prints are a new normal) and time spent remaking the other 4 orders. I won’t know how future shipping goes. I closed all my shops to take a break for a month. Between my supplier, usps and various marketplace shenanigans I’m tired and just need a break.
They should be scanned accepted when dropped in the box. This is an issue with your post office. It could be internal postal theft or it could be your post office is having issues with a scanner (our post office has a battery issue so it doesn’t always upload) or the person collecting the box is lazy. We always take ours into the counter to get scanned in front of us.
As far as scans after the first distribution center, they have been hit an miss for a while. We have come to the conclusion that some distribution centers always do it and others either don’t or are spotty. For us, Amarillo TX is very erratic on several levels.
It may or may not be internal.
Our post office removed the blue box from outside because mail thieves put some sticky substance inside the box so letters wouldn’t go to the bottom, and then they’d fish out those letters in the middle of the night.
Next the post office locked the indoor mail chute because thieves were fishing out letters with some kind of grabber. The large package chute is still available, probably because thieves have not yet figured out a way to drag up heavy boxes through the chute.
I discovered three more orders missing. Why my customers wait forever to contact me is beyond me. This one order shipped in January and had they noticed within a week that it hadn’t processed they could have emailed me and I could have made a replacement order. But they wait till March! At this point with my supplier issues I had to issue yet another large refund.
I also am realizing that it’s all “big orders” that are missing. In someway I guess packaging 4 or 6 light switch covers must make it look like a more expensive item?? I did a lot more digging and realized when I drop off the orders all the single ones make it just fine! It’s not a postage issue as I’ve been doing this for 17 years I know how much my packages weigh.
I feel so upset about this because it seems like even if I was to open my Etsy shop back up if my supplier got their crap together that I can’t trust usps and I would have to go in and stand in line.
Put my finger on one of the reasons some of my USPS Ground Advantage shipments are not getting scanned until the PO before delivery.
They were packaged in a stay flat cardboard mailer which is approx. 4" x 9" the size of a Number 10 envelope.
They are being treated as letter mail and routed through letter scanners. They are moving through the system without scans. Since they are too rigid to be considered machineable, they may delayed when the jam the sorter.
Clearly a problem at my PO or the first sorting center.
I have stopped using this packaging, which troubles me because it is the perfect size for travel brochures.
Due to cost-cutting, I’ve read USPS is laying off 6K in employees, about 10% of its 60K employees. I spent an hour in line yesterday to get orders counter-scanned, which we do daily-except Sunday..
Only one person at the counter-20+ folks in line-and approx.15 after me. Since it was after 4 when I left (closes at 5pm), think the employee was panicking, foreseeing she’d be there till 6 or so(if one is in line at closing, have to be waited upon).Have seen this occur at holidays, but in mid-March?
The branch manager was manning the parcel-pick-up-and he rarely appears. Wonder if this is how it’s gonna be in future?
We aren’t in the USPS pick-up area for the hub where we counter-scan and have our business P.O.Box, in case someone asks the reason we waste time at the P.O.(cuts 24-48 hours, on average, to delivery time). We also have few issues w/ USPS, overall, though the southern hubs(Memphis/Atlanta/occasionally Orlando seem to be slower, now that Bell Garden is completely automated.
@Best_Handmade_Soaps @ceciliang
So USPS is aware of the text/email alert issue … today on the USPS site …
A package we sent last Thursday finally made it to the “local” distribution center yesterday Tuesday. Not sure where it sat for 5 days but we do know the interstate and several roads have been closed due to accidents caused by the high winds and dust limiting visibility. Maybe one of the trucks that was flipped was a USPS truck.
When you mentioned 60,000 employees, do you mean only the counter employees or other class?
Google says USPS 635,000 employees, so dropping 6,000 is a statistical nothing
I opened an inquiry about one of my incoming packages and got a response via email AND via cell phone from a rep at my local PO letting me exactly where my package was and when it would be delivered (which it has been). He also gave me his direct number at the local PO if there are any issues. I consider that above what I expected. I did get a notification about that package being delivered via my email, but not on my phone.
-Ana
Just so I’d be sure of my facts, I laid in wait for above mentioned branch manager. The P.O. was much less busy than yesterday and when the counter employees were just about ready to call the cops on me for vagrancy, he finally deigned to appear!!!
The results of my interrogation:
Apparently, 10-15% of USPS employees are “qualified” to work the “front end” As well as USPS experience, the employee must to go through a special bonding process. Plus, to handle cash, a further process, which includes a bonded employee overseeing a newly-minted counter employee ( I’ve seen the sign: THIS WINDOW DOES NOT HANDLE CASH). This is a UNION RULE, not one established/enforced by the bond issuer.
THE “GOOD” NEWS": USPS union has joined w/ several other gov. unions in filing suit to prevent DOGE from facilitating lay-offs. Yesterday, several employees called in sick; another on vacation. Forced to call in several employees to cover early shift, which, usually, is the busiest counter time. So my long wait had nothing to do w/ lay-offs or future lay-offs. Non-news based on disinformation!
Somehow, I’m not cheered by this data! .
It will be interesting to learn, after y’all complete the planned return to the 28th from the 46th, whether or not the local branch manager concurs.
This message kind of SHOCKED me, because I had not put the acronyms of
DOGE and USPS ever together, in my busy little mind.
OH MY, oh my.
IF the D does the U
My business is History.
I have to be honest…we ship 99% of our orders through USPS and have had very little issue relative to our volume. Maybe 2-3 packages per month go missing and we’ve never had an issue with getting reimbursed for these when we filed a claim.
It’s way advantageous that USPS has automatic insurance on Ground Advantage because in the old days (meaning like 2021 or before Ground Advantage started), you were SOL if a package got lost.
It helps to have contacts with these guys, too…obviously our local PO but heck I have a direct cell number for one of the shift supervisors at our local regional sort facility, too.
The only real issue we’ve had is with mailing tubes…which is well-documented in terms of how long they take to arrive because they have to be hand-scanned. However, we don’t ship more than a few of those per month. I make real sure to get an actual hand scan on these at drop-off (as opposed to just the scan sheet for the rest of our stuff) since I always want proof in case of Amazon INR’s.
We took a print out of the package that had not moved in 4 days (just showed local post office scan) into the local post office. The next day in the evening it showed up at the local distribution center where (by scans) it has now sat for 3 days.
FYI … the text/email notification on the USPS site is back up and working as of this morning (3/20/2025) for us.
A compound of things for me. In 78 orders for the last 14 days, my OTDR hovered around 90%. If I had many more orders, it would likely drop below the 90% threshold without promise extensions. With AHT and SSA enabled, I have lost my handling time padding, (without playing the hold shipments for AHT training game) because my PO cannot come close to handling the counter traffic they currently have, much less individually scan all my packages on a daily basis.
Amazon thinks they have USPS transit times figured out to calculate “arrives by times” but for me they are mostly way off.
I don’t have personal stats on the numbers, but I know that I deal with “where’s my stuff” on a daily basis. There are too many distribution centers with big problems and this is the slow time of the year! Priority has been a big joke as they clearly don’t prioritize that class anymore. So many performance issues with USPS right now.
Here’s an example which makes no sense to me. This ASIN had a 2 day handling time pre AHT. With AHT and SSA enabled and recent shipping history, Amazon would normally have me ship this on Monday 3/24. It’s early in the day so I will be shipping today but Amazon has the ship by date 3/27.
A troubling development on this front may be the reports over in the NSFE of USPS seizing BSS/MSS-shipped packages for suspicion of Fraud Postage:
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/seller-forums/discussions/t/c54b81d3-4da0-4562-91dc-768f17edd4dd
