It's odd to see all the hate for USPS in these threads. My own experience is that USPS is by far the best carrier out there. Part of it is the unfair advantage of actually having a mailbox to deliver to. Smaller packages are placed in the mailbox rather than left in front of my garage to be stolen by random passersby. But part of it is just that they're reliable and cheap.

With Amazon, around here they like to use a craptastic local shipper called LaserShip. Now those folks are the epitome of incompetency. Tracking is useless, they like to mark packages as delivered well before they actually arrive, and sometimes they just plain give the stuff to the wrong address. Once they gave my package to a random house thirty miles away!

I don't mean to say that you and the others are wrong, of course! I wonder what the difference is. Maybe I'm just lucky in this respect due to where I live or something.

Amazon doesn't make it possible to prevent a shipper from being chosen to fulfill a package, but you can request what they call "carrier deprioritization" via their customer support helpdesk, which will artificially weight the carrier in question so that their algorithm will opt against it unless it is the only carrier able to fulfill a given order.

I've had good success with this last year, after Amazon's own in-house fulfillment service caused me a series of issues due to erroneously failed deliveries; since I made that request, I haven't had a single shipment fulfilled via AMZL_US save those for which I requested same-day delivery of items present in the Canton warehouse. Other sorts of orders which AMZL_US would previously fulfill are instead now handled by UPS or FedEx.

If you have trouble with LaserShip, as I gather many do, you could probably do worse than to request Amazon deprioritize that carrier. If my experience is any guide, you may have to bounce from rep to rep a couple of times before you find someone who knows what you're talking about, but it's worth persisting, because the results are, at least in my experience, much worth the effort. Hope this helps!

Thanks! I don't order much from Amazon these days (just because it has become really annoying to wade through all the third-party sellers, and they often aren't all that price-competitive anymore) but I will keep that in mind for the next time.

I wonder how bad a carrier has to be for Amazon to abandon them entirely.

> It's odd to see all the hate for USPS in these threads. My own experience is that USPS is by far the best carrier out there.

From what I've gathered from anecdotal evidence, things vary a lot by region. Where I am, USPS is incompetent (repeated Sunday deliveries to my apartment building fail because "no access" despite USPS employees having a key to the building during the week) but the other carriers all make an effort and are willing to redeliver later the same day if they mess up.

Plus when I want to ship things around the country or (especially) internationally, USPS is nearly always the worst option unless you want slow and cheap.

I recently shipped something a few miles via USPS and it just never got there. I was RMAing something and the company was nice enough to replace the item.

I've noticed USPS deliveries at my office have been very unusual lately. They often just throw the stuff on the floor near the door (there's a table for mail, etc), and when people exit the door it mashes the letters and such. Very odd. Also, it appears that the people delivering do not speak any English. I've tried to talk with them and either they are pretending to be ignorant of English or they don't understand it.

The only way to protect yourself is to ship non-USPS and insure.

I've had stuff disappear or get smashed with other shippers. It's part of the nature of cheap package delivery at massive scale.

I had UPS leave things outside my garage where they could easily get run over. Thankfully they've finally learned to put stuff at the side of the door rather than the middle.

Throwing mail on the floor is completely bizarre, though. I don't know if it would do any good, but have you complained to your local post office about that?

Also, federal offence to interfere with the US mail. UPS? a tort I think?

> Tracking is useless, they like to mark packages as delivered well before they actually arrive, and sometimes they just plain give the stuff to the wrong address.

USPS marks stuff delivered before it arrives here at work. They seem to just run through all the packages and flag them when they put them on the truck. Had it happen with one from Amazon just yesterday. At least I've always received them. I have more trouble with Amazon not putting everything in the box they're supposed to.

Ive heard through the grave vine that approaching Amazon via customer service and asking for the primary shipper to handle all phases of the process will stop your packages from getting handed to local services.

I had an issue where USPS was claiming packages were delivered to meet their prime contractual agreement then not actually delivering it until 1-2 days later. (So prime 2 day was taking 3-4 but marking it as delivered to my box on day 2 every time). I filed a complaint to USPS, and a USPS employee actually called and admitted that they were probably doing that to make their stats look better. I feel like any other organization admitting to contractual fraud like that would actually face consequences, but truthfully I don't think anyone holds USPS to a high bar.

Contacted Amazon and they claimed they prioritized UPS for my address. Seemed to work -- packages come via UPS almost exclusively now. Pretty good resolution in my book.

I have the exact same issue with USPS. If I see Amazon shops with USPS, I don't even bother to look for the package until the next day now. The problem for Amazon now is if I need an item ASAP, I really can't trust their next day/2 day shipping so I will just end up going to a local store and buying it.

My issue was resolved via the exec customer support team after e-mailing Jeff Bezos. Worth a shot. Amazon is many things, and being great at customer support is definitely still one of their best strengths.

Thanks! I will try that.

Hmm. Maybe this is what has been happening to me. Thank you.

I've had a similar experience. A few years I had multiple issues with LazerShip (last mile delivery) and I complained to Amazon about it. They've never sent anything via LaserShip to me since.

You guys must be special. I've had several problems with LazerShip. Most recently they delivered a $300 watch to the wrong location. I've specifically asked if I could somehow avoid having packages shipped by them, and the CSRs have told me they can't control that.

Maybe it has to do with my region, or the fact that I'm quite close to a regional Amazon warehouse.

Here's something that's worked for me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13660378

Read the label on the package in the twitter link, it was shipped Deutsche Post (the German equivalent of USPS), not DHL. They use the DHL name sometimes for international packages (they are owned by the same group) but shipping Deutsche Post is decidedly not the same as shipping DHL.

As I mentioned in the last thread DHL definitely does not use USPS for delivery. I get packages every week via DHL and they are delivered in the yellow DHL vans, by DHL employees, 100% of the time. They may farm out last mile delivery to USPS for some rural or residential addresses though.

If someone in Germany can clarify this, I'd be interested.

edit: added picture https://i.imgur.com/0vDfxVN.png

In Germany, they are not just owned by the same group, it's the exact same company ("Deutsche Post AG", the parent company of the group) and you talk to the exact same persons to use their services. Letters and small packages use the "Deutsche Post" brand and larger ones use "DHL" but that should not be confused with the DHL you find in the US. Despite the name they are still the USPS of Germany. They differentiate because in larger cities they deliver both services separately, i.e. your Amazon order will not be delivered with your letters in the morning but later in the day. They also have a US-style service which they call "DHL Express".

You can choose to have your package delivered by DHL US instead of USPS but that is not the default option when shipping from Germany. You have to through DHL Express for that.

All of the large US couriers have a service where they use USPS for the last mile: DHL eCommerce, UPS SurePost, FedEx SmartPost.

Thanks for the clarification. I suppose I should have mentioned my experience with DHL is with packages sent from the EU (but not Germany) to the US. I guess the EU ex-Germany's DHL is more like US' DHL.

Yep, DHL is typically cheaper for international than UPS or FedEx. For shippers to save even more cost they do the last minute with USPS. This is available for every service. Tracking does show up for USPS. If you paste the FedEx SmartPost or UPS Innovations tracking # into Google, it will direct you to the link for USPS's tracking.

I cringe every time I see "UPS SmartPost" as shipping method, which uses USPS for delivery. Package literally comes within a couple miles of my house, then continues hundreds of miles to another state for sorting and another 2-3 days of postal tourism.

+1 on requesting shipment methods on Amazon for extra fee.

edit: clarified USPS does delivery on these.

Just a nitpick, but SmartPost is FedEx, and SurePost is UPS.