We hate the USPS!

As a lot of you know, we've been getting ready for a move from Florida to Colorado. We worked everything out to minimize the stress on the fish by mailing them overnight, I even got a ticket on an early flight to beat the package to Denver. We had Stacy's mom pick up some of those sterilite storage boxes for temp. tanks, ordered a bunch of Azoo palm filters from the DFS website. We also got Meth. Blue, Fish Protector and Breathable Bags to make the trip as comfortable as possible for them.

So, everything was in place to have the fish be settled into temp tanks in under 24 hours. We bagged all of our fish and had the package ready.. we get to the post office and they REFUSE to mail our package! > No live animals they say, even with the chill pack in with them and us willing to sign any kind of waiver, they just refused to ship the box. {What were we thinking expecting the USPS to mail something?! }

There was no other alternative but to take them to Denver on the road. We've already lost one of the MahachaI Betta babies and it'll be a miracle to not lose more fish. Thanks a lot USPS & a big fat up yours for being so totally worthless! > I don't care if it costs more, we'll ship via FedEx before giving the USPS any business.

 

Whatever you do, DO NOT ship with UPS !!! UPS is even worse than USPS. If you want to find out why, just go to my blog (where you'll find out how badly they've screwed up my order). And wow ... moving to Colorado I LOVE Colorado. Have some cousins there too If I were moving out of NY, CO would be definitely on my list!

I didn't know USPS won't ship live fish. They did ship live plants for me though. And although I understand why you're angry with them, to be honest, USPS did an excellent job shipping my plants. I ordered an overnight shipment of plants (from Maine to New York). They were shipped on Saturday, and arrived at my doorstep the very next day: Sunday morning. I was so surprised. I will ship my next plant order with USPS too.

 

Sorry, I should have told you a few things.
One, mark the box as water samples for shipping.
Two, never let them know you are shipping live animals.
You cannot claim insurance on them, if you do not tell them about it, but everyone I have shipped as water samples has gotten there on time.

Sorry for not thinking ahead on that.

 

:-\ well, I already hated UPS after our own nightmares with them.. I would NEVER ship anything that couldn't survive a bomb blast with them, given the miserable condition they deliver packages.. when I worked at Mesa Oil here in Denver, every time we ordered forms, at least 20-30% of the boxes were damaged beyond use every time. I'll tell brown what they can do for me.

FedEx is probably who we'll use if we ever have fish to ship again. we'll see what direction we go in after this move is over and we see how many fish we lose. Hopefully just the one MahachaI betta baby, but 2 days left...

 

So sorry to hear the problems with usps Dave. Wondering why you are driving the fish to Denver now tho? Why not just use Fedex like you mentioned instead of usps? Your fish are already packed up and ready to go right?
Good luck with your fish.. I really hope they make the ride for you.
~ kate
ps.. I thought you were already in CO. lol... I posted on your other topic..

 

So sorry to hear the problems with usps Dave. Wondering why you are driving the fish to Denver now tho? Why not just use Fedex like you mentioned instead of usps? Your fish are already packed up and ready to go right?
Good luck with your fish.. I really hope they make the ride for you.
~ kate
ps.. I thought you were already in CO. lol... I posted on your other topic..

To ship them FedEx, they said we'd have to be approved shippers and by the time we got screwed by the USPS, it was too late in the day to ship them any other way.

 

Yeh.. I hear you on all that red tape! jeesh.... I really hope they make the drive up!
~ kate

 

thanks, me too.. is it friday yet?

 

.... LOL.. it must be strange being up there by yourself....

 

.... LOL.. it must be strange being up there by yourself....

lol.. yea, it is.. way TOO quiet!

Just talked to Stacy - we lost another MahachaI last night. Our adult male Anakin. > :'(

 

OHHH noooooo..... I'm so sorry!

 

Aww dave! So sorry to hear about all this! I know how you spent ages trying to figure all this out and to have it not work out must be so frustrating!!

 

Oh no! I hope you don't lose anymore of your babies. :'(

 

Dave you and Stacy have my condolences. You must feel awful about this whole thing.I can't believe the USPS all of a sudden just changed their rules like that. That is just so frustrating. I can't blame you for not wanting to go with them anymore. I am so so sorry. Natalie

 

Hey Dave and Stacy, Sorry about Anikin and the little baby !!!! I really hope the rest of the move goes well!!

Miley

 

oh no!! I'm so sorry you lost those 2!! Hopefully the rest will make it ok!

 

Aww dave! So sorry to hear about all this! I know how you spent ages trying to figure all this out and to have it not work out must be so frustrating!!

yea, extremely! > I need the TARDIS now, eh?

 

Oh no! I hope you don't lose anymore of your babies. :'(

yea, we'd love to have the rest of them make it here, particularly Natalie's pair, but they're all so cute and have gotten real friendly.

Hey Dave and Stacy, Sorry about Anikin and the little baby !!!! I really hope the rest of the move goes well!!
Miley

thanks, sweet Miley. *hug*

oh no!! I'm so sorry you lost those 2!! Hopefully the rest will make it ok!

thanks, we hope so too.. then we'll see what our next step is with them.

 

Dave you and Stacy have my condolences. You must feel awful about this whole thing.I can't believe the USPS all of a sudden just changed their rules like that. That is just so frustrating. I can't blame you for not wanting to go with them anymore. I am so so sorry. Natalie

Apparently, they changed it aug. 16th.. if only they'd posted that info on the site when I looked up postage rates on overnighting the fish.

 

I wonder what sites like miamiaquariums are going to do with shipping their fish? I see them still advertised shipping with USPS overnight on Ebay. Does this rule apply to anyone wanting to ship fish through usps?
hmmmm....

 

idk.. maybe they'll just say it's water samples or something..

 

wow...I don't know what to say...I could tell from reading your blog, that you were really proud of your mahachais...it must be really tough :'(
hope everything goes well!

 

i'm sorry for ur lose I could satnd losing my blue acara

Peace Out Callum!

 

USPS will ship pretty much nothing since that whole anthrax thing. Pretty much anything liquid is out. Anything they deem "potentially hazardous"; living beings, chemicals, etc...
That all ticks me off, but the idea of insurance ticks me off more. Didn't I pay them to ship it? Didn't they accept payment? Doesn't that mean that they have an obligation to perform the duty they accepted payment to do? It's like going to McDonald's, ordering a Big Mac, and being told that there is no guarantee you'll get your Big Mac whole, or with all of its pieces, or even at all, unless you also purchase an extra $.10 insurance.
I'm with Isabella on UPS. There are a bunch of reasons I don't like them. For one, they won't deliver something if they think the person on the label doesn't live at that address. Seriously, I ordered something, but my wife and I had just moved, and apparently the record of our names hadn't changed yet, and they refused to deliver it.

 

yea.. my wife's parents mailed a package that got returned, but the post office never bothered to call even though it had all that insurance, etc on it.. it wasn't until months later, that we found it by accident, trying to get a package we were expecting during a visit - which they failed to deliver.

 

Oh nooo. What a bummer. Stacy must be so stressed trying to keep all the fish alive. I'll keep my finters crossed for you two.

 

Stacy did a great job with them! ^-^

 

What, they're all alive?

 

To ship them FedEx, they said we'd have to be approved shippers and by the time we got screwed by the USPS, it was too late in the day to ship them any other way.

I know its a day late and a dollar short, but, when wanting to ship something with FedEx, it was only a three minute process on being approved.

Sorry to hear about your fish.

 

the fedex person I talked to said the 1st step now is to mail the shipping box to them for approval.