Heartbroken Over Missing Pen

[Mr. Dante]

In my experience, the problems seem to arise when the person who is regularly assigned to the route is off that day and someone else is filling in. I have not had problems with USPS because most of my deliveries arrive by UPS or FedEx. The problems I have had with UPS are all attributable to the regular driver being off that day, with someone else filling in. I can't speak to USPS's problems, but with UPS, I know the drivers are under extraordinary time pressure which makes mistakes inevitable when they are unfamiliar with the route. I hope everything works out for you. I know it can be maddening when a package is delayed or lost.

[J85909266]

Update, the package is still lost in the mail and has not been returned to the seller. Tracking info hasn't been updated since the 13th.

[inkstainedruth]

Update, the package is still lost in the mail and has not been returned to the seller. Tracking info hasn't been updated since the 13th.

File a complaint. Ask to speak to a postal inspector (not just a postmaster or some random hack supervisor). It could be that the pen got lost or stolen.

Unfortunately, I have seen several cases on the news recently about people just randomly going up to peoples' houses and stealing packages, and if that's the case, the USPS will just shrug and say "Well, we delivered it, not our problem." But file a complaint anyway with an inspector. That was the route I ended up having to take when my membership was suspended in an organization I belong to -- the newsletters were being returned as undeliverable to the corporate headquarters in California, and there was much finger-pointing between them and the USPS. It turned out that there was a problem with the *optical* bar code (which has nothing whatsoever to do with the printed barcode, apparently). But when I finally talked (in person) to an inspector and said "I'm not getting First Class Mail" (I paid extra so that I wouldn't get the newsletters late the way I had when I did the less expensive Third Class Postage), she looked into it and got things straightened out. Having a suspended membership was bad because I couldn't be on the roster for one of the activities I normally did -- and a paid membership meant that I was allowed to handle money: even though I generally leave that to someone else, I would be able to in a pinch. So being a paid member in good standing was really important.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[SwedishScribbler]

Wow, I feel sorry for everyone who has had bad post/delivery experiences but it also feels comforting somehow to know that I am not alone in my suffering! I have only just started to get back into fountain pens after not using them for 20-odd years, and my very first delivery from Goulet seems to have got lost in the post...I received a notice to go pick it up at the local grocery store that handles packages since our actual post offices are closing down one by one, and when I got there the package was nowhere to be found...the grocery store won't do anything about it since I can't prove that the package was actually delivered to them, and the postal service won't do anything about it since they say that it has probably been lost in the grocery store's post room...it was just a cheap Jinhao pen and some ink, but I'm pretty upset about it anyway.

[J85909266]

Hooray! The pen turned up by total surprise in my mailbox, this morning! And man, is it gorgeous. Highly recommend checking out Bexley Pens. Their Ebay prices are without peer for what you get.

 

Anyway, I'm so glad this had a happy ending. I've been using it all day.