Good service to sign up and use

[Cpadave]

I recently came across the informed service from USPS. They also have an app. I think it is useful making sure when and what mail and packages you are receiving.


https://informeddelivery.usps.com/box/pages/intro/start.action

 

[audreyh1]

There is an old thread about informed delivery around here somewhere......

 

[Cpadave]

Ha Ha, I was late to the game.

 

[RunningBum]

It's also helpful for the rest of us if you include in the title what a topic is about, instead of just generically calling it a "good service". Thank you.

 

[gromit]

I was the OP of that thread (April 2017). It is here: http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f29/informed-delivery-a-free-new-usps-service-86401.html

 

[dixonge]

I use this so I can let my brother know when there is something in the mail that he needs to forward to me in Mexico

 

[cbo111]

Several folks in my neighborhood signed up for this service, but find themselves frustrated when notified of deliveries that don't actually make it to their mailboxes. When they call the post office, the answer is usually a shoulder shrug. Our carriers are mainly contractors with a high turnover. Recently one of them was out at 6:30 pm still delivering because someone quit and she was doing two routes.

 

[OldShooter]

UPS has a somewhat similar service where they email you a day before a delivery to let you know a package is coming. Unfortunately neither the email nor the tracking site gives the name of the sender. Not sure why.

 

[easysurfer]

I really like the service. Now, instead of fetching my mail every day, I do so only after seeing in important one show up scanned. Probably about 1 every 2-3 days.

 

[audreyh1]

I really like the service. Now, instead of fetching my mail every day, I do so only after seeing in important one show up scanned. Probably about 1 every 2-3 days.

Same here!

 

[Ready]

There was just that one time that I got the morning email showing that I had a letter from the IRS coming that day, and I spent the entire day worrying about it before finally receiving it and having it turn out to be nothing.

But otherwise I like getting the daily email and knowing if anything important is going to show up in the mailbox.

 

[easysurfer]

Not related to USPS informed Delivery, but did you know that USPS tracking works too for some stuff ordered from ebay and sent from China?

I ordered a DVD from China on ebay (epacket delivery from China, to be more specific). Put in the tracking number on USPS.com and see now the item made it from China to San Fran, along the way .

 

[OldShooter]

Not related to USPS informed Delivery, but did you know that USPS tracking works too for some stuff ordered from ebay and sent from China?

I ordered a DVD from China on ebay (epacket delivery from China, to be more specific). Put in the tracking number on USPS.com and see now the item made it from China to San Fran, along the way .

Yes. There seem to be two shipping options from China: regular mail and e-packet. For very cheap things with "free shipping" you get regular mail and no tracking. More expensive things are more likely for "free shipping" to default to e-packet. Sometimes, too, the cheap things' shipping options include another dollar or so to upgrade to e-packet.

My experience is that regular mail can take a couple of weeks or more to arrive, while e-packet is about seven or eight business days. The big holdup, which you can watch in the tracking information, is at the post office where the customs guys inspect packages. This can stop the package for a couple of days.

 

[easysurfer]

Yes. There seem to be two shipping options from China: regular mail and e-packet. For very cheap things with "free shipping" you get regular mail and no tracking. More expensive things are more likely for "free shipping" to default to e-packet. Sometimes, too, the cheap things' shipping options include another dollar or so to upgrade to e-packet.

My experience is that regular mail can take a couple of weeks or more to arrive, while e-packet is about seven or eight business days. The big holdup, which you can watch in the tracking information, is at the post office where the customs guys inspect packages. This can stop the package for a couple of days.

One sign of being retired is having fun seeing the travel of the e-packet tracked all the way from far away .

 

[RobbieB]

I don't even look, never have. A decade of ebay direct from China. Never a problem, always amazingly fast, always accurate description.

Even for stuff that costs a couple bucks. Amazing.

 

[Katsmeow]

We just moved and I signed up for Informed Delivery. I have found it useful. We are living temporarily in an apartment (until we close on a house) and I find that Informed Delivery is off by a day. That is, if I get an email on Monday morning about expected mail, I don't actually get it until Tuesday.

 

[harllee]

Katsmeow, same here. We have informed delivery for our post office box and we usually get the mail in the box about a day or so later after the informed delivery email. Also sometimes we get a picture of a blank envelope that says something like you have mail but we have no picture of it. Overall though it is a helpful service and we have been able to reduce the number of days we go to the post office to only a couple of times a week.

 

[easysurfer]

I like the convenience of informed delivery. Get the mail now only after I see something that seems important show up instead of the regular junk mail. But the scans don't catch everything as I think at this time, magazines and larger deliveries don't get scanned.

I happened to be by my mailbox yesterday so thought I'd go ahead and fetch the junk mail (since I hadn't seen anything important recently scanned). Sitting with the mail was my recent order of checks that I had forgot about.