USPS sent my pkg 767 miles out of route

So I ordered some motors from Hobbylinc which is located in Hoschton, GA about 50 miles east of Atlanta.

If they would have routed my package through Atlanta and then to Irwinton, GA where I live the total trip would have only been 162 miles. Instead they sent it from Hoschton, GA to Memphis, TN and then to Atlanta, GA and now it should be on the way to Irwinton, GA. This new route is 929 miles That is basically 767 miles out of route to my house. No wonder why USPS is loosing money. I know they lost money on my package.

The real bummer is now I don't have my motors. Tomorrow is suppose to be one of the best days we have had in a couple of months and I really wanted to Maiden LowBotomy.

Pictured is the USPS tracking info and also checkout the route map so you can get a good idea how stupid this really was.

A = Hoschton, GA (Hobbylinc) -- Green Dot
D = Irwinton, GA (My Post Office) -- Red Dot

Federal fail.

The USPS has been planning to close a lot of distribution centers and truck most mail further distances. It doesn't seem to make much sense with the cost of fuel these days.

In this case I doubt they purposely sent your package an extra 700 miles. Somebody probably make a mistake in sorting and put a package on the wrong truck. Postal workers are still humans. It certainly sucks when you were expecting a delivery for an event. I've seen UPS do the same thing on occasion with a package being routed all over the place.

Maybe they are trying to follow the Fed Ex approach

As I understand it, EVERY Fed Ex package goes to the main distribution center in Tennessee. So a package from one side of LA to the other side of LA still goes to Tennessee first

I also recall a story where a college student had to do a project for his Master's degree where they needed to develop a product, the business case, marketing, etc. The student developed the concept for a means to deliver packages overnight between major cities. He only got a C on the project because the professor declared it was not technically feasible. The student sometime after graduation started Fed Ex.... Wonder what the professor thought after seeing its success???

I don't believe Fedex still runs everything through Memphis based on what I have seen on recent tracking for 2nd day and overnight deliveries. Would Fedex really route a package going across a major metro area onto a plane? That makes about as much sense as the USPS routing a package an extra 700 miles.

Personally, if I had a package going across town I would use ground delivery as it will get there the next day 99.9% of the time. A business might just automatically send everything overnight no matter the destination so they don't have to think about it. Fedex also gives huge volume discounts to big shippers.

belfert said:

Personally, if I had a package going across town I would use ground delivery as it will get there the next day 99.9% of the time. A business might just automatically send everything overnight no matter the destination so they don't have to think about it. Fedex also gives huge volume discounts to big shippers.

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Well this was motors so it went ground USPS mail. It sat in a truck for all those miles. Even if you send something "Air" or "Priority" mail it rarely see's the inside of a airplane cargo hold. USPS basically does the pony express using trucks and drivers. A driver takes it as far as his driving time will allow and then he unhooks from the trailer and goes to sleep. The next driver is there waiting to hook up and go as far as his driving time will allow. So on and So on until it makes the delivery sort facility.

I always wonder why my motor packages can't go priority when they are ground based anyway ??

The USPS has huge contracts with Fedex for air delivery of Express and Priority mail. I doubt they can drive a package from Minneapolis to Los Angeles in two days. At 60 MPH driving solid it would take 33 hours. That doesn't include time to sort that package, or to get it loaded on the carrier's truck and sit there until it gets delivered along the route. UPS Ground and Fedex Ground take 4 to 5 business days to get a package from Minneapolis to LA.

I'm pretty certain a Priority Mail package that goes 2,000 miles gets on a plane at some point.

Tracking doesn't indicate it or show it, but, I SUSPECT that your package was handed to the FEDEX 'Smartpost' system and that is why it went thru Memphis..USPS does that a lot, that FedEx will do a lot of the 'leg work' to get packages delivered..Will be interesting to see if the box is labeled to state the motors inside-apparently not because if you look at the times it is obvious the package FLEW (on a plane) from Atlanta to Memphis..

I have ordered motors from HobbyLinc in the past and the package has gone Atlanta->Jacksonville->Savannah->Hinesville...Which is, in my book kinda silly, as the package then passes within literally a 'stones throw' from Hinesville twice.To Jacksonville and then to Savannah...Go figger:confused2:

Pantherjon said:

Tracking doesn't indicate it or show it, but, I SUSPECT that your package was handed to the FEDEX 'Smartpost' system and that is why it went thru Memphis..USPS does that a lot, that FedEx will do a lot of the 'leg work' to get packages delivered..Will be interesting to see if the box is labeled to state the motors inside-apparently not because if you look at the times it is obvious the package FLEW (on a plane) from Atlanta to Memphis..

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I didn't notice the actual times but you're right. 1 hour 15 mins to Memphis, TN it must have flown. And they hustled them onto the plane to make that time frame. (It would have taken me or you at least 3 hours to get to Atlanta and make that flight.) If they are going to do that then let me ship priority and I would have had the package on Thursday. These motors being in a consumer quantity hardly register as HAZMAT to me anyway.

Well that is embarrassing...

The more I think about this --- Hoschton is 50 miles from Atlanta. That only leaves at the most 30 mins of flight time not counting any handling time. Damn can I get a scaled down version of that rocket ship :eyepop: Am I doing the math wrong ??

belfert said:

The USPS has been planning to close a lot of distribution centers and truck most mail further distances. It doesn't seem to make much sense with the cost of fuel these days.

In this case I doubt they purposely sent your package an extra 700 miles. Somebody probably make a mistake in sorting and put a package on the wrong truck. Postal workers are still humans. It certainly sucks when you were expecting a delivery for an event. I've seen UPS do the same thing on occasion with a package being routed all over the place.

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I know here in Tucson, Az. letter going across town goes to Phoenix, Az. 120mi. away, then back to Tucson. So in all my letter that is to go maybe 15mi. will travel 240+ miles. before it is delivered. To really screw things up takes goverment. And they call that "saving money". Yet when they closed down the distribution center here they put 120 people out of work, and on unemployment, where is the savings? :confused2:

I wouldnt complain if I were you. I shipped an order from US composites (southern florida) through UPS to Northern IL. It was supposed to take 3 days to get here (I payed extra to ship it by air). Instead , the online tracker said it went from florida, to puerto rico, to mexico, to pheniox, to here. It took 10 days! I can understand a day or two late, but 7... really? UPS refused to give me a refund.

All shipping has screw ups. I sent a package this holiday seasona by UPS and paid a very steep premium to have it arrive well before Christmas Eve.. It wasn't there by Christmas. When I checked, it was just plain lost. No one could tell me where it was. A few days later, it arrived at its destination, with no intervening tracking info. I have no idea where it went during that time. Maybe it just sat in the corner of some warehouse in Oakland, CA, or maybe it went to Antarctica and back. I asked for a refund and got most of my money back.

Even though it has been explained before, it is worth repeating.

The USPS has a contract with FedEx Express to transport most packages and Priority Mail via FedEx aircraft between USPS offices. The decision as to what goes on an aircraft verses what stays on the ground is done by the USPS. The local USPS offices put the selected boxes/parcels into appropriate containers (usually orange mail bags) which are then transported to the local FedEx facility. Those bags are loaded onto the aircraft via 'cans' to be flown to a sort hub (usually Memphis or Indy for domestic,/world, LA or Anchorage for Pacific, Greensboro for Atlantic, or Fort Worth for South America). At the sort hub, everything is unloaded, sorted, reloaded, and flies on out via a reverse process to eventually get to the local USPS office.

Now, as far as why something is flown across the country verses trucked across the state, the answer is pretty simple...it is more efficient and packages don't care how they get there.

Example....lets say you live in Amarillo, TX and are sending something to Tulsa, OK. Actual driving distance isn't that far...several hours by truck. But, you're the ONLY person sending something to Tulsa from Amarillo that day. The USPS has several options to get your package to Tulsa in a timely manner. A) They could dedicate an entire truck to your shipment...not cost effective at all unless your shipment takes up an entire truck. B) They could have your package sit at the station until enough packages going to Tulsa accumulate to fill a truck. Not timely (I understand shipping by rail and boat works like this). C) They could throw it on a FedEx plane which is flying a bunch of other packages to a sort facility already.

Which one makes sense to you as far as a tradeoff between cost and speed? As a large shipping company, you could not afford everything going point to point...you have to sort and group somewhere. As a customer, you cannot wait weeks or months with your package in a queue to have enough others to join it to ship for point to point. Hub and spoke is how air freight works which means your package may go in directions you don't expect.

As long as my package gets to where it's going, intact, in the timeframe allocated, I don't particularly care if it ends up going around the planet.

FC

I think the worst fubar I had with shipping was with my rf45 milldrill. The trucking company dropped it during shipment and tore up the electrical control box. The seller made good on it and provided repair parts, R8 collets, a vise, keyless chuck and a bunch of other basic tooling free of charge.

The second worst was shipping a T205 transfer case from the east coast to San Jose. It arrived in San Jose and UPS promptly shipped it back to the east coast....

goldlizard said:

I know here in Tucson, Az. letter going across town goes to Phoenix, Az. 120mi. away, then back to Tucson. So in all my letter that is to go maybe 15mi. will travel 240+ miles. before it is delivered. To really screw things up takes goverment. And they call that "saving money". Yet when they closed down the distribution center here they put 120 people out of work, and on unemployment, where is the savings? :confused2:

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The USPS is not really a government agency. Thus, the costs of unemployment compensation does not directly affect them. I would hope the USPS is paying unemployment taxes just like a private company. Long term, it costs less to lay off employees than to keep them employed. Unemployment compensation pays way less than the typical worker got paid as an employee.

Employers pay unemployment taxes to fund unemployment compensation. The more workers a company lays off the more they pay into the system. The system is supposed to be self funded. During the good times employers pay in a lot more than is going out so the funds develop a large surplus. The surplus is used to pay compensation during an economic downturn. Congress dramatically increased the length of time for payouts during this past recession so it is unlikely that employers will ever pay in enough to cover what was spent in the past four or five years unless the tax is increased.

ckreef said:

So I ordered some motors from Hobbylinc which is located in Hoschton, GA about 50 miles east of Atlanta.

If they would have routed my package through Atlanta and then to Irwinton, GA where I live the total trip would have only been 162 miles. Instead they sent it from Hoschton, GA to Memphis, TN and then to Atlanta, GA and now it should be on the way to Irwinton, GA. This new route is 929 miles That is basically 767 miles out of route to my house. No wonder why USPS is loosing money. I know they lost money on my package.

The real bummer is now I don't have my motors. Tomorrow is suppose to be one of the best days we have had in a couple of months and I really wanted to Maiden LowBotomy.

Pictured is the USPS tracking info and also checkout the route map so you can get a good idea how stupid this really was.

A = Hoschton, GA (Hobbylinc) -- Green Dot
D = Irwinton, GA (My Post Office) -- Red Dot

View attachment 119269

View attachment 119270

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HAHAHA That's nothing compared to this

FastCargo is correct in his analysis. In optimizing any large system you will have a few things that will not be done efficiently so that bigger savings can be made somewhere else. Looking at the routing of one package in a system where thousands are being moved is not a reflection of the efficiency of the entire system.

Zeus-cat said:

FastCargo is correct in his analysis. In optimizing any large system you will have a few things that will not be done efficiently so that bigger savings can be made somewhere else. Looking at the routing of one package in a system where thousands are being moved is not a reflection of the efficiency of the entire system.

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True. But you're ruining the fun of slamming the Postal Service!

Yea, what's wrong with those guys? Don't confuse us with the facts!

ThirstyBarbarian said:

True. But you're ruining the fun of slamming the Postal Service!

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ThirstyBarbarian said:

True. But you're ruining the fun of slamming the Postal Service!

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:lol:

In contrast to this my last order of LED strip lights went from mainland China to my door in 10 days. Not sure where the hand-off to the USPS happened, but never the less pretty remarkable. Pretty good for an order with free shipping.

I'm still scratching my head how the package went from Hoschton, GA to Memphis, TN in 1 hour 15 mins. I mean if you put it on a helicopter in Hoschton, GA and traveled a straight line to Memphis, TN that hellicopter would have to travel about 325 mph. And this doesn't count loading time, handleing time, waiting in cue for departure clearance, circling airport for landing clearance, unloading cargo etc....

And why did the motors get in a plane?? Who paid for that HAZMAT fee?? The whole purpose of USPS ground w/ no HAZMAT fee is because they are never suppose to get in a plane (they are suppose to stay on the ground). If they are going in a plane anyway why can't we choose priority mail w/ no HAZMAT fee ??? Just stupid rules IMHO

Next time I want to go to Memphis TN, I'm just going to drive to Hoschton, GA and package myself up in a box. I believe I could handle 1 hour 15 min in a cramped box :lol: and I could probably ship my 207 lb box for way cheaper then current airline tickets.

ckreef said:

I'm still scratching my head how the package went from Hoschton, GA to Memphis, TN in 1 hour 15 mins. I mean if you put it on a helicopter in Hoschton, GA and traveled a straight line to Memphis, TN that hellicopter would have to travel about 325 mph. And this doesn't count loading time, handleing time, waiting in cue for departure clearance, circling airport for landing clearance, unloading cargo etc....

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Hoschton is in the Eastern Time Zone and Memphis is in the Central Time Zone. The scans are apparently in local time, so the actual time traveled would be 1 hour longer then.

However, it looks like something else is strange. There are two lines refering to the "USPS origin sort facility". In one case it is in Hoschton, in the other it is in Memphis. I don't know anything about USPS nomenclature but this seems inconsistent.

Reinhard

I like the USPS best of any package delivery service for ground service. Priority mail costs about the same as UPS or Fedex ground yet the package shows up in two days at least 99% of the time. The other good thing is Saturday is a delivery day. I will go out of my way to find someone who will use Priority Mail if I need something quickly.

Reinhard said:

Hoschton is in the Eastern Time Zone and Memphis is in the Central Time Zone. The scans are apparently in local time, so the actual time traveled would be 1 hour longer then.

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That was a really good observation :wink: Now my brain can somewhat wrap around this idea. Why didn't I catch that.

So the reality is I need to be able to spend 2 hours and 15 mins curled up in a box if I want to go see the concert in Memphis next weekend :eyepop:

Okay, I will tell you how the USPS made a 3,000 MILE mis-ship! Now, my street address is 21 Haney Rd..I go to get the mail after getting home from work just before Thanksgiving..And there is a letter from Florida..Hmmm..I wonder ,as I cross the street to the house, who do I know in Florida? When I get in the house and turn on the lights the letter is addressed to a 21 HANDLEY RD in one of the suburbs of LONDON ENGLAND[/b}! It was even stamped for 'Air Mail'!

Sheesh! I put it back in the box with a sticky saying:"I think this letter is supposed to go to England"...:rofl:

I wonder if the chaps in London got their holiday card in time...