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Originally posted by natsb88

About a year ago I sent a small package and a large light-weight box to the same address in California via Parcel Post. The small box was delivered fine. The large box got to the local PO in CA and was marked "not deliverable as addressed." It was sent back to the hub in Philadelphia. It was turned around and sent back to CA again. It was returned to Philly again. It was then sent from Philly (it's third stay there) to the dead mail facility in Atlanta. It sat there for close to two weeks, then it was sent back to Philly, and finally returned to me, over 60 days after it was initially mailed. Turns out the middle line of the delivery address on the shipping label had been rubbed by something and smeared so that you couldn't read the street address. The name, town, state, and Zip were fine. That box logged something like 14,000 miles.

I recently received a piece of cardboard in a USPS envelope with a customs form attached to it and a letter from the USPS that said "...we believe this was attached to a parcel addressed to you..." Yeah, no kidding. It was the remnants of a package sent to me from Canada 4 weeks earlier. I have received probably a dozen identical packages from the sender before and I know it was well packaged and taped. They must have run it over with a truck.

Just a couple days ago I received a bubble envelope, again inside a USPS envelope. It began its journey as a white envelope at the beginning of December in California. Now, a month later, it's a brown and black envelope with what appears to be wheel marks and footprints all over it...probably spent a couple weeks on the floor of a postal facility. Thankfully it was a plastic envelope so it held together. It was sent Media Mail.

I had a shipment sent from Canada in three boxes. The first two arrived fine, the third didn't show up until over a week later. It was dripping wet, the cardboard almost completely dissolved, held together only by the loop of package tape around it.

I have received a number of broken open flat rate boxes in the plastic USPS totes, some missing contents, some miraculously complete even though you could clearly see the coins inside. I once received a flat rate box with multiple air stickers...apparently it took a side trip on the wrong plane. I had a large box sent Media Mail completely vanish. I had a box sent from Canada complete vanish.

The point is, if you ship and receive enough, you will eventually run into problems. All in all, Priority and First Class Mail are safe and reliable, IF packaged and addressed properly (lots of tape, put a strip of tape over the address to protect it, etc). I rarely even touch Parcel Post anymore, and if I do it gets insurance. Same with Media Mail.

Oh, and getting anything in from Canada Post take forever I get packages from Australia and Hong Kong faster than I get anything from Canada Post.

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Originally posted by Nickelmeister
It takes a while moving around all that copper by dogsled

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