Mr Postmen are becoming lazy.. especially in the Europe!

[Winbert Hutahaean]

Pardon my words, but since I am now in Bulgaria I ordered many small things that are not available here. Many I bought from Ebay. It is truly small things like medicine, soaps, lotions, etc. They came from China that (amazingly) many companies offer free global shipping.

Now the thing is, Mr Postmen would not drop to my address, but rather sending an SMS informing me to visit the nearest post office to pick up the items.

What make me surprise, it is not free. I have to pay approx. $2 for each package. So if at the same time I came to pick up 5 packages, then it is $10. That cost is for "delivery" which they actually did not do that but instead I came to them.

If there is one package was unlucky where custom had to check, there would be another $2 for "custom inspection".

I am wondering if this happen in other European countries?

(ps: I once ordered from Temu and it was delivered to private box, where I need to input the password. This was totally free)

What about you guys in the States, do the USPS Postmen still deliver to your door?

and.. the Royal Mail in the UK?

cheers,
winbert

[Steve Klare]

Hi Winbert,

The only exception we have to receiving our packages at home here in the US is when a signature is required and nobody's home, after a couple of attempts we have to go to the post office, or Fed-Ex or UPS (etc.) and pick it up there.

The worst one is Chewy.com: the pet supply people. Every couple of weeks Fed-Ex shows up with two 20 Pound bags of cat litter and heaves them onto our front porch from (I swear!) about 10 feet away! (-Shakes the whole house!)

THIS is why when I buy bags of concrete I buy it them the store! If Chewy.com sold it, Fed-Ex just might knock down my whole front porch!

[John Armer]

Throwing post and packages seems to be a peculiarly-US thing Steve; we've all seen movies and TV programmes where the kids delivering newspapers just hoy them off their bikes onto your guys' front lawns. Never happens here in the UK (besides 9 times out of 10 they'd be soaked to mush by the rain!).

[Juergen Kellermann]

Here in South Australia, we now have mail-delivery only every second day - so post office staff has time to deal with all the parcels. This means we get mail only on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Hi!

Having to pay DHL or UPS for customs checks upon delivery is normal (when you didn’t already pay in advance).
From time to time, I even have to go to the customs‘ special post office and have to open the parcel in front of the customs, having all the order forms printed out in advance to proof that I really only paid the amount stated on the parcel, … . In these cases, I don’t have to pay the shipping company, but I normally have to pay customs etc. myself. (Not to mention that parking there isn’t free, but adds another 2-4 EUR to the bill.)

Amazon, Hermes, UPS… only ringing the bell of one of the apartments in our building and dropping off 5-10 parcels there is also pretty common. Services like GPD don’t even bother to drive to my address - the live tracking shows that they are always directly heading for the flower shop that acts as local GPD parcel pick up.
Only DHL is still bothering to ring at each door in our building. But that is also only true for 90% of the cases. In all other cases, the parcel ends up at the local post office with a „driver exceeded maximum working time“ excuse.

In any case, I never heard of a „pick up fee“ or „storage fee“. Are you sure that the sender didn’t choose „postage paid by recipient“?

[Winbert Hutahaean]

Hi Winbert,

The only exception we have to receiving our packages at home here in the US is when a signature is required and nobody's home, after a couple of attempts we have to go to the post office, or Fed-Ex or UPS (etc.) and pick it up there.

Steve you are lucky in the US side it seems the USPS is still doing the classing way, i.e delivering to the front door. I even heard in rural areas it is still a norm to give Christmas cakes (or small gifts) for the Mail men.

But is it still the case in a big city like New York where the builidngs are so tight and many floors?

Joerg Polzfusz this is deginetly "delivery fee".

@all, I am talking about the service provided by (used-to-be) State owned companies. I understand in several countries, like Germany, they are already fully privatized but still they are part of UPU (United Postal Union).

What make me surprise for this very kind of USPS service, as far as I know, there is a convention that the sender takes all. It means if there are so many incoming mails, the USPS did not get anything but delivering more. But that rule may have changed now.. I am not sure.

[Steve Lee]

I will have to say that the postal service in france is pretty good. The majority of properties have a post box that is built into an external wall. This is big enough to get a good sized parcel in. The post and also amazon have a key that is universal to every box on the outside, and the inside door has a unique key.
Also if you purchase a shipping label online from the postoffice, you can tick a box to have the parcel collected from the box in your home. Believe it or not the service is FREE!
It is also possible to purchase stamps online and print them at home. It was great during the covid lockdowns as it was still possible to buy and sell on ebay, without leaving the house using this service.

[Steve Klare]

Usually apartment buildings have postboxes on the ground floors and the mailman (-or lady!) only has to enter the lobby.

I would imagine a place like the Empire State building gets more mail than my entire neighborhood! Being the USPS in a place like Manhattan is kind of a gigantic job!

The USPS has cut back. Back before I was born there were two deliveries per day. Somewhere along the line, it was cut back to one.

Seven day a week delivery was cut back to six maybe in the 1970s: Monday through Saturday.

[Dominique De Bast]

I will have to say that the postal service in france is pretty good.

I agree, but if there is a problem, the customer service is zero, now. They use AI when you write to them, and whatever you write, "they" answer by repeting what the tracking site says, even if you explained that it's wrong. When you call them, you can hear from the accent that the peron who talk to is not in France, they tell you thay will call back, April's fool... In the post offices, however, staff is always great.

Winbert, I ordered a parcell from the USA. I got a message from the Belgian post office with the bill : VAT + Import taxes (don't ask me why they charge you twice...) AND an outrageous Post Office charge : €40 ($46,5 / £34,5) for handling my parcell (isn't that supposed to be their job?). No comment (but I hate them).

[David Strelitz]

In the UK it's mixed. Our regular Royal Mail postman is great and if we are out, will leave parcels in a safe place and leave a card to advise. DPD deliver in time slots and are the best of the carriers. It does depend on the individual driver though, some take pride, are friendly and a credit to their company, others less so and couldn't give a 4x.
The worst of the worst are the Amazon scumbags who dump a parcel on the doorstep, drive off and mark it as HANDED TO RESIDENT. The other trick is to leave an A4 package sticking out of the letterbox, so easy to nick.
Amazon CS make all the right noises when you complain, escalate the issue but nothing changes.
FWIW my step daughter is a high flying logistics manager for an international carrier in Germany. Not your regular domestic company. Her take is quite simple, based on her extense industry experience. You want free or cheap delivery, the drivers are paid peanuts and are expected to deliver hideous numbers of parcels per shift. Something has to give.