I'm expecting a check from a company in Rhode Island. I'm in NYS. They say it went out on the 15th, and it's not here as of the 20th.
And, I've had other moments where the mail just seems to take too long. Is the PO slowing down? I know we joke about it being the US Snail, but they were doing OK for a while.
About two weeks ago I ordered a used book from a UK bookseller. Delivery by surface mail was estimated to take three to six weeks, but it was delivered within a week, so certainly it was not held up by the USPS.
Perce
Might not all be the post office. Clerk may have put check in the out box on that date but it could take a day or two before it actually gets to the post office via their mail room.
Also I cringe on getting checks through the mail. With all the junk circulars they handle, the check might be buried in them. Also I get other peoples mail and I assume they get mine.
Nice to hear a good word. Thanks.
I wonder, sometimes. a couple times a year, I get others mail. Who knows? Might be like you say, the check went into the out box, and took to the PO a couple days later.
The way it goes where I work, when a query about a payment comes in, accounts payable looks in the accounting system to find the date the payment was approved, and the date the check was cut. They tell the vendor the date the check was cut. But there can be a several day interval between when the check was issued and when it was actually stuck in an envelope and put in the mail.
That could have happened in your case: the check was cut on a Friday, then sat in an inbox on someone's desk until Monday, when it was put into an envelope and put in the mail. If that didn't get done until later in the day Monday, the USPS wouldn't have even picked up the mail until Tuesday.
I try to do all my consulting work over the internet and for my main client I get direct deposit of checks.
Sounds right, to me. In this case, the company went from net 30 to 45. I start to nag them about 50 days, and the check can be any where from 50 days or more.
At least around me, it's still great. Sent a Priority Mail package to a friend about 70 miles away and he got it in one day not two. Was expecting a package of some stuff I'd ordered online as well, it showed up a day earlier than expected.
Of course I do live right near a major international airport and also a major USPS hub, so that probably helps.
nate
You never know about the USPS. On Nov 13 I ordered some small electronic components off ebay from Taiwan. They arrived on Nov 20. Small items about
10 of them each smaller than a dime. About a week to travel half way around the world. It usually takes about 2 weeks from that part of the world. It did arrive by the USPS.About a year ago I sent a friend about the same ammount of stuff. He never did get it. Was not worth the price to have it checked out. Sent him the same thing about a month later and he got it in about a week. He is only around 50 miles away. During tht same time he sent me something and it took over 2 weeks to get here. About 2 months ago he sent me a leter and it arrived in about 3 days.
I quit dealing with one credit card compay. It should have been a good company as it was ATT. I would get a bill, put a check in the mail in a day or two and half the time they said it did not get there in time and they would add a late fee. Not sure if it was them or the USPS, but seemed like they were the only one that did that to me.
On a extremely consistent basis, letters we mail from our office to local recipients - I.e. within our metro area - are delivered the next day. Letters and packages that I send to my daughters at college, both within the same state, might take 2 days, sometimes they are delivered the next day. I'm kind of surprised how fast they get to my daughters considering that all mail to the colleges is delivered to the school's mail room and then sorted (again) and then sent on to the dorms. That tells me that both the USPS process and the school's process are pretty efficient.
Just an an FYI, I don't know how it works in other cities, but this is what a clerk at the local PO told me:
It doesn't matter if you drop your letter/package at the PO at 9AM or 5PM or at the earliest time listed for pick-up on the street side mail box or the latest. While it may get sorted earlier, nothing goes out until later in the evening. In other words, it's not going to get there any earlier based on when you drop it off. It all leaves the originating PO at relatively the same time. I assume it's different at PO's with much larger volume, like in NYC or LA.
One other thing that I have found interesting - and consistent - is the way colleges handle their addressing vs. the standardized addresses the USPS uses. All 5 of the colleges that my kids have attended over the years send out a letter describing how they want their mail addressed. If you want to use the USPS website to create mailing labels for packages, the format of the address that the schools give you won't fit the format that the USPS website forces you to use. I have always been able to manipulate the school's address to get it into the fields that the USPS requires, but then it's no longer in school's desired format. However, this has not seemed to delay the mail in any way. I've talked to a couple of the colleges about their flexibility vs. the inflexibility of the USPS website but I've not seen any changes on the college's end to "bend" their format to fit the USPS requirements. Seems like a simple change on their part, especially since the USPS format works just as well as theirs.
I had regular forwarding last year and it took an average of 3 weeks from the original Postmark to get from them to my home and then down to the Fl. Keys. I was figuring it was just "island time" for the USPS then noted that it was only taking 4 days to get from the home PO to the Keys. That and they decided to not even send three checks, just returned them to sender. That is the only time. I went back to the ridiculously expensive but at least you get the stuff premium forwarding .
I'm expecting a check from a company in Rhode Island. I'm in NYS. They say it went out on the 15th, and it's not here as of the 20th.
And, I've had other moments where the mail just seems to take too long. Is the PO slowing down? I know we joke about it being the US Snail, but they were doing OK for a while.
"Obama said if people are having trouble with the website, they can still apply by mail. Only the government could come up with a website slower than the Post Office." (Jay Leno)
I mailed a large parcel post package from New York to my father in Oklahoma. Arrived in three days. The same day, he got a first-class letter postmarked in his own ZIP code ten days earlier.
The reason our stamps are 45 cents is because the first class mail pays for the advertisements you throw away. Stamps go up, more people go to e-mail, stamp revenues go down. To preserve the service to advertisers, price per stamp has to go up.
Typical management screw-up.
I tell my utility providers, "Stop telling me to save a tree with electronic billing until you stop padding the envelopes with extra tree carcasses.
key words "they said"
And there's "trick checks" (for example, according to the fine print, cashing this one is considered an agreement to change phone service to AT&T). Be careful of checks from unexpected sources.
I get others mail 1 or 2 times a month. It's almost always for the same house number, but on the next street. My mail doesn't see to go wrong that much, but it has happened. I once ordered a tube of thermal grease (for computer CPU), and it came late. Apparently it was delivered on time, but to someone else. It took a week for that person to correct that problem.
Also, one time I got an unexpected package containing 9 pounds of white cake frosting, meant for a store in a city 35 miles away. One container was leaking too.
You, I like!
The real reason for electronic, is that it costs the power co less. They don't much worry about trees. As you demonstrate.
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