Do you have a physical mailbox at your house for receiving mail?

[tpowell1830]

The new piss-off for me as far as postage goes is on-line sellers who are unwilling to send to a po-box in Australia, not understanding that despite the size of the box, it's available space and indeed the size of the parcel, the post office will deal with it accordingly. Unlike other countries.

Here only USPS can deliver to PO boxes, even curbside mailboxes which by some odd quirk are legally property of the postal service even though they are typically homeowner purchased and installed. UPS, Fedex, etc are legally forbidden to deliver to a PO box or mailbox.

During the Vietnam war, I was a teenager, and a couple of friends decided that it was a good idea to drive around in the country side and do baseball practice on mailboxes with a bat while hanging out the window. This is a federal offense. They were caught and since the mailboxes are considered federal government property, they were given a choice: either go to prison and pay large fines or join the marines and go fight in the war. They chose Vietnam... they both survived and led a normal life.

EDIT: I didn't mention that they had a bit of drink to help with their brilliant decision to slam mailboxes...

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Just put this up a few weeks ago.

[Halcyon]

Just put this up a few weeks ago.

Very cute. Love the bird artwork. Did you make this yourself?

[mwb1100]

Almost always had pretty bad experiences with FedEx as well. DHL, meh. In my experience, UPS provides the best service overall. All UPS employees I've had to deal with were helpful and diligent.

I have always had great experience with whoever is doing the "last mile" delivery to my home, but the overall service (from origin to my house) differs.  From worst to best is:

  - DHL:  always a crap shoot (except for the two times I've ordered from welectron.com, which went amazingly well)
  - FedEx Ground
  - UPS Ground
  - USPS

Pretty much any 1 or 2 day service has been great, with only the occasional hiccup (often weather related)

[unknownparticle]

Here in the UK it would be impossible to live without a letterbox!  Government departments will not send mail to a PO box, same for ebay, amazon and all other online sellers I've dealt with.  The only other option with online sellers is parcel shops or pickup points, non of which are ever convenient for me.   And if like me you are a knife collector, UK sellers will not send to any other address but your registered address.
Also, PO boxes aren't cheap here.  You can redirect mail for limited times, and mail can be held for time away on holiday, also limited.
The downside to a letterbox is junk mail!  So I've started to return junk mail, with a twist!  I send one junk offenders mail to another in their post paid envelopes!  Just a bit of their own medicine.

[Ed.Kloonk]

The downside to a letterbox is junk mail!  So I've started to return junk mail, with a twist!  I send one junk offenders mail to another in their post paid envelopes!  Just a bit of their own medicine.

National Geographic and the like used to include a postage-paid envelope for you to send a cheque. Because postage paid was ambiguous, you could get a cardboard box, put a house brick in it and affix the postage-paid envelope to the box.

[CatalinaWOW]

Almost always had pretty bad experiences with FedEx as well. DHL, meh. In my experience, UPS provides the best service overall. All UPS employees I've had to deal with were helpful and diligent.

I have always had great experience with whoever is doing the "last mile" delivery to my home, but the overall service (from origin to my house) differs.  From worst to best is:

  - DHL:  always a crap shoot (except for the two times I've ordered from welectron.com, which went amazingly well)
  - FedEx Ground
  - UPS Ground
  - USPS

Pretty much any 1 or 2 day service has been great, with only the occasional hiccup (often weather related)

Here in the US, in my area at least, the big shippers (DHL, FedEx, Amazon) have contracted with the USPS for last mile services.  UPS seems to still do all of their own, and next day deliveries are usually handled internally, but I get a huge percentage of my packages from USPS regardless of the carrier.

One interesting side effect of this-the USPS does not do Sunday delivery their own mail except on the very highest priced urgent delivery services.  But they do at least some of their contracted last mile services on Sunday.

[themadhippy]

So I've started to return junk mail, with a twist!  I send one junk offenders mail to another in their post paid envelopes!

More fun to put in a business looking envelope with a nice printed address,not to the companys po box,but there real address,and forget to put a stamp on it.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

Yeah made it myself, with the help of a laser cutter.
My sister inlaw did the artwork, there is a bandicoot picture on the other side.
Unfortunately I only seem to get bills delivered in it.

[m k]

I guess changing the picture to Ned Kelly is not going to help.

[Brumby]

Yeah made it myself, with the help of a laser cutter.
My sister inlaw did the artwork, there is a bandicoot picture on the other side.
Unfortunately I only seem to get bills delivered in it.

I made mine also. .. but this was in the 80's, long before laser cutters.  The design was to accept my electronics magazine subscriptions, keeping them flat, protected from rain and thieving fingers.  Working well.  Needs a little TLC, but still standing tall.

[james_s]

During the Vietnam war, I was a teenager, and a couple of friends decided that it was a good idea to drive around in the country side and do baseball practice on mailboxes with a bat while hanging out the window. This is a federal offense. They were caught and since the mailboxes are considered federal government property, they were given a choice: either go to prison and pay large fines or join the marines and go fight in the war. They chose Vietnam... they both survived and led a normal life.

EDIT: I didn't mention that they had a bit of drink to help with their brilliant decision to slam mailboxes...

That doesn't seem to be enforced anymore. Locking mailboxes are getting broken into all the time, people occasionally get caught with a pile of stolen mail in their vehicle and they're let off with a slap on the wrist if they are prosecuted at all.

[SiliconWizard]

During the Vietnam war, I was a teenager, and a couple of friends decided that it was a good idea to drive around in the country side and do baseball practice on mailboxes with a bat while hanging out the window. This is a federal offense. They were caught and since the mailboxes are considered federal government property, they were given a choice: either go to prison and pay large fines or join the marines and go fight in the war. They chose Vietnam... they both survived and led a normal life.

EDIT: I didn't mention that they had a bit of drink to help with their brilliant decision to slam mailboxes...

That doesn't seem to be enforced anymore. Locking mailboxes are getting broken into all the time, people occasionally get caught with a pile of stolen mail in their vehicle and they're let off with a slap on the wrist if they are prosecuted at all.

Yep. Over here there are several laws that would apply to this and cumulated could yield a pretty severe sentence, but in practice it never happens and nobody seems to really care.
(Mailboxes are considered private property, so that would be at least: 1/ damaging private property, 2/ violating the secrecy of correspondance, 3/ theft.)