Canada to end home mail delivery. Does US post still?...

[Locut0s]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/canada-post-to-phase-out-urban-home-mail-delivery-1.2459618

Over the next 5 years ALL home mail delivery will be phased out. Instead they will install thousands of large mail boxes across the country similar to apartment mail boxes that will services large numbers of people. Mail will be delivered to these instead, including parcels. So people will walk to pick up their mail. Say good buy to the concept of the mail box in Canada.

There is a certain amount of vocal opposition to this move here. For one some feel it unfairly targets the elderly who may have difficulty walking to pick up mail and parcels. Many also worry about security concerns since bulk mail boxes of this type are very often the target of thieves for the purposes of identify theft. Canada Post "insists" they will be secure, whatever the heck that means.

They are also raising the cost of of postage which is ironic. So from now on it will cost more to send a letter a shorter distance, to be handled by fewer people. Of course CP has been haemorrhaging money despite being a public company, largely due to the Internet, which is the reason for these changes. They plan to reduce their work force by at least 8000, actually more as they say that they will not be replacing a lot of people who retire.

I don't know much about the US system but I knew they have also been in crisis recently. At least I remember watching stories about this on TV. How was that resolved there?

[Cha]

1. Well, we're still plugging along.. there was big talk of

ending Saturday service on August 10, 2013 but that didn't happen, thankfully.

And, I've read that USPS is teaming up with Amazon to deliver packages on Sunday..

"The postal service will deliver Amazon packages on Sundays in the L.A. and New York metropolitan areas at no extra charge starting this week. The service will expand to other cities next year.

November 10, 2013|By Tiffany Hsu

Giant online retailer Amazon.com Inc. is turning up the heat on rivals this holiday season and beyond under a new deal with the U.S. Postal Service for delivering packages on Sundays.

Starting this week, the postal service will bring Amazon packages on Sundays to shoppers' doors in the Los Angeles and New York metropolitan areas at no extra charge. Next year, it plans to roll out year-round Sunday delivery to Dallas, New Orleans, Phoenix and other cities."

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/nov/10/business/la-fi-amazon-usps-20131109

Perhaps not to my small city on the Island.

That's too bad about no home mail delivery in Canada, LocutOs..and those who will be losing their jobs! I lived in a town in 2010 for a year where there was no home delivery. Walked and ran to the PO to get my mail and to mail it. Now it seems like a luxury to have it right down stairs. They don't pick up mail, though so I still have to do that. But, there's a drop box just across the next building and across the street over. Not so inconvenient.

[CFLDem]

2. I've heard the USPS is also looking to do the same thing.

[Brother Buzz]

3. What's kinda maddening with the US mail....

You have to pay rent for a post office box, yet home delivery is free.

Years ago, I figured if they flipped it, and had to pay for home delivery, all the post office woes would disappear.

[Logical]

4. We have a street mailbox. It works fine. n-t

[Locut0s]

5. No issues with break-ins? nt.

[Logical]

6. Not since I have been here (1992). I am sure it is possible....

but home delivery would be easier to steal. Our mailbox as a kid was on the front door and anyone could have opened it.
My neighborhood one has a key I use.

[u4ic]

7. My experience with Canada Post

The past month has been frustrating, to say the least. Two packages sent. One by Xpresspost, it arrived late and they refunded my money when I complained.

Just sent another one, it was supposedly delivered three days ago, according to their tracker, but the recipient has not received it. Where did they deliver it? Its my effin computer for my relative to fix. Yes, I insured out, but seriously...

If they are that incompetent...

I know that's not your question, but it's ridiculous. If what I'm experiencing is not unusual, no wonder they're losing money -and its not just due to the digital world.

[Locut0s]

10. Been a while since I sent anything...

Never used to have a problem sending and receiving. Maybe they have really let their quality slip over the years? Sounds like they are giving up before they even implement this change.

[laundry_queen]

14. I think it's unusual

I've been ordering packages online for years and years from the US and around the world. The only companies I've EVER had big problems with are DHL/Loomis and UPS. I've sent quite a few parcels around Canada and the US and have never had an issue with Canada Post. Canada Post has been exceptional for me with regards to parcel delivery. I'm sorry you are experiencing those issues.

[u4ic]

17. UPS

Once I accidentally left my passport with my friend who them went back to the US. When she shipped it via ups, they wanted $40 in customs and brokerage fees! It took a month to sort that mess out, including me having to refuse the package when delivered, sending it back and her having to resend it all over again. They gave her incorrect info at her end the first time, they knew what it was and basically held my passport hostage for 2 weeks. Never, ever will I use ups.

I just got word that my Canada Post package was delivered today, 3 days after the website said it was ( not that the warehouse received it, that it was actually delivered). Even though it was insured for $500 they left it in the doorstep of a townhouse complex, in a fairly busy street that is also on a bus route. Morons.

I haven't sent anything in a long time, except these two within 6weeks of each other. I haven't had any problems receiving from Canada Post, just sending.

[laundry_queen]

18. ugh.

$40 for a passport? WTF?

I had a giant issue with DHL recently. They 'tried' to deliver but said I wasn't home. I WAS FUCKING HOME. The asshole driver didn't bother to ring my doorbell. Because it was a customs package it probably would've taken him an extra 5 minutes on his route, so he 'pretended' he 'attempted delivery'. Fucking liar, he did NOT. They wanted me to drive an hour to the nearest depot. Except the depot is Loomis. Loomis couldn't tell me what happened and told me to call DHL. Just try and get a hold of a live human through DHL. It is impossible - their phone service is one giant circular button pressing exercise in futility. Somehow (after about an hour of pressing buttons and listening to 'information for our customers' messages in every category) I got a hold of a live person and lost it on them. I told them I wanted them to send the driver out again. The person on the other end said they would call before deliver to make sure I was home. So I paid for the customs online so that he would just drop it off. However, after 2 days, I didn't get a confirmation or a call so I made the trip to pick it up (and so I could find a real human to unload on). Turns out, the parcel wasn't there. They sent out the parcel for delivery that day.

I let DHL know how much they suck...and their email bounced back. Their website is atrocious. Like their phone line, it is specifically designed to keep people from finding out how to find a real human to help them. I will NEVER use them again. Every time I order from a company that offers DHL, I choose another method of shipping and let them know why. I cannot express in words how much I hate DHL. /vent

I've never had issues with Canada post that come close to resembling anything like the DHL or UPS fuckups I've dealt with. It's why I will defend Canada Post fervently when I have to listen to right wingers wanting to privatize it. I let them know how 'well' the private companies are doing in comparison.

Anyway, sorry 'bout that. I get worked up about the subject. I still can't believe your story about the passport. W-T-H.

[u4ic]

19. An hours drive??!!

Wow, what a bloody annoying situation, to say the least. I've never heard of DHL, but thanks for the heads up, I won't use them (or Loomis, or UPS). I've had that happen with both UPS and Canada Post, they assume nobody's home and don't even buzz\ring the doorbell. However, I've never been more than a few blocks away from the depot.

I don't blame you for being angry, not at all.

The UPS thing even had me call CBSA and tell them my govt issued I.d., their documentation which actually belongs to them, was being held by the company and I explained the while situation to them. They couldn't have cared less. The first time it was sent, my friends was told by UPS to put down 0 as the worth amount. Later on, down the line, UPS said was unacceptable, that nothing is worth zero. CBSA said the paper could be worth a dollar, laminating another dollar or two and I was thinking w.t.f!

So, after many calls back and forth both to UPS and the govt, they sent it back to my friend (at no charge to me they pointed out...ugh) and she had to resend it ( and pay twice) as a "gift". Took a month for all of this to be sorted out.

[Contrary1]

23. I've sent several cards and small gifts to friends in Canada...

Not a single one was received. I gave up.

[Liberal_in_LA]

11. wow.

[derby378]

12. Not cool at all

Canada's the second largest nation on the planet. Of course its citizens are entitled to postal delivery to their homes.

I'm taken aback by how ridiculous all of this really is.

[Locut0s]

15. Well I think the really rural areas always had comunity boxes...

Most Canadians live in the big cities along the border. But the population density of the more rural areas here can fall to nothing, more so than the US. I think most of these areas already had rural mail boxes, vs door to door. But where it will probably affect people the most is in areas of medium pop density that still do get door to door service now.

[LadyHawkAZ]

13. I'm in an apartment and we have a communal box

but the houses in my area still get door-to-door mail. Where I lived in Arizona there's still individual service as well.

My parents got a box that serves the whole street way back around 1990. There have been no problems with it that I know of.

[laundry_queen]

16. I have one of those 'boxes at the end of the street' things

I'm in Canada. The only issue we had here was that the ones that weren't cemented to the ground were tipped over one night (vandalism). Now they are all set in concrete. I don't find it much of a hardship to walk to the end of the street, but I don't have a disability. However, 2/3 of Canada already doesn't have home delivery so I guess it should be asked what have those without the means to pick up their mail been doing in that part of the country.

Oh, and the people who fill the boxes are contract workers. Sometimes they suck but if you complain, it gets fixed in a freakin' hurry. I had one put in a parcel card and not put when to pick up, nor that it had duties and the postal worker at the outlet where I picked up the parcel took note and reported it. It never happened again.

And sometimes they mix up your mail, but when I did get home delivery in one town I lived in, our delivery person also messed up our mail a lot, so I don't think that's only reserved for contract workers. I do miss getting mail AND parcels at the door though *sigh*. Sometimes around Christmas they still do door delivery of parcels around here because all the outlet storage places fill up with boxes fast. It's nice when that happens.

[luckykate54]

20. They have done this before.

When I worked as a carrier for the Citrus Heights Post Office in the 80's. They took a route that delivered to mail boxes on the street and changed it to ndcbu's . It really makes sense to do this because it saves on gas, time and injuries.

[bonnieS]

21. In the US

the Post Office has been intentionally crippled by a 2006 law that calls for the Post Office, unlike any business anywhere, public or private, to pay into a pension system SEVENTY FIVE years in advance for people who have not been born yet. Several Senators have tried to get this repealed, but Republicans love it because it has led to the laying off of UNION WORKERS. They want to privatize everything and that was the intention of putting in this egregious law. So it is not the Internet or anything else--that is the reason they are losing money in the US. They receive NO tax dollars and exist on selling stamps etc. They would be fine if that law was repealed.

[Locut0s]

22. That's too bad. But I'd be surprised if the internet didn't have a large effect...

From USPS's own site you can see that the total mail volume went from 202.1 Billion in 2003 down to 160 billion in 2012.

http://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-facts/