Wondering where your stuff from overseas is? Shipaggedon!

[Marie13]

North American port backlog continues to build.

Record container ship traffic jam as backlog continues to build

The drop in ships waiting off Southern California is deceiving. The number of ships off all three coasts is back to all-time highs.

www.freightwaves.com

 

[Bigbella]

Yeah?

Explain this psychotic DHL tracking behavior: parcel had arrived, on schedule, at LAX on 1 January, to be passed to the USPS for final delivery; and the latest update has it just leaving Frankfurt am Main on the fourth . . .

 

[BoundForElsewhere]

I envy your well-traveled parcel.

 

[Bigbella]

I envy your well-traveled parcel.

You and me, both . . .

 

[-JD-]

Yeah?

Explain this psychotic DHL tracking behavior: parcel had arrived, on schedule, at LAX on 1 January, to be passed to the USPS for final delivery; and the latest update has it just leaving Frankfurt am Main on the fourth . . .

I just had a DHL package sit for 18 days in a depot in Germany before they got off their butts and handed it over to USPS in Frankfurt (< 20 km away). USPS got it to me in less than a week, over New Years.

Must be one of the signs of the apocalypse when German "efficiency" falls behind the USPS ...

 

[Manatee Diver]

Must be the one of the signs of the apocalypse when German "efficiency" falls behind the USPS ...

Strange because most of my USPS delays are in their international sort centers. Most of my USPS international packages spend two to three weeks in NYC.

If money isn't a consideration I like DHL Express, I've had packages shipped from Japan to the US arriving in less than 48 hours. And it wasn't all that much more than the air mail options.

 

[TuckerIdaho]

USPS is broken as hell. I had a UPS to USPS package travel to 5 towns in my state over the past 2 weeks. Went through mine once too.

 

[Vicko]

Before you start complaining about your postal services remeber that Croatian post exists.
They built a sorting center, got a contract from the croatian government for processing customs information and then proceded to literally steal money from people. If i order something abroad, even in european union where there are no customs, they will hold it for 10+ days in the sorting centre, then charge me for it sitting in the sorting centre, processing the customs information, and illegally charge customs tariffs and taxes.
If I complain (which I do, every single time) they offer to pay you back the tariffs and taxes, but not the processing fees as those are their operating costs (sometimes higher then the full shipping costs)

Rant over, i just paid 300 euros extra for my o2 sensors so I'm a bit peeved.

 

[Marie13]

And the USPS isn’t going on strike like Royal Mail in the UK over Christmas. I don’t have issues with the USPS like some people do with packages.

 

[Bigbella]

Aside from the very odd 27891 kilometer + roundtrip from Frankfurt to LA to Frankfurt and back, the DHL site's "For more information on the shipment, simply make a status request via the following link: Request current shipment status" option has always elicted this: