What's With the USPS and Knives?

C

Confederate

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I've had a horrible experience with my post office.

On Sept. 4, 2008, I sent back four CRKT M21-14s and an M16-14SFA for work and replacement. CRKT had agreed to swap me four M21-04s (plain edge) and fix a defective M16. But the package never made it out of the Post Office station. Never made it to the next leg of the journey. Whoever lifted it did so at that station. Luckily I had it insured.

But no!

Filling our an exhaustive claims form (it was insured), I submitted it to the same post office and it never made it out of the station. Poof! It vanished into the same vortex, seemingly, as my knives. The paperwork was lost. After a period of time with no response, I went back to the post office and, in front of the supervisor, filled out another form and made her watch. I gave her copies of the documentation and left, assured that all was in order.

Now, today, I get a letter from the Claims Department that said the paperwork was incomplete. It seems I need an exhaustive receipt for the items (purchased over about a year from eBay). In short, no receipt, no insurance claim. So I made one up using Photoshop and am sending that in.

But what of this? Is there a problem with mailing knives? Have you ever had one (or more) stolen? What if someone gave you the knives as gifts or you've had them for years? They never asked for it either time that I filled out the paperwork and now I'm wondering if it's harassment.

So after talking to the people at Claims, I wrote a letter to my Congressman and then I followed up by starting a ticket with the Inspector General. (The last time I sicked a Congressman on the Post Office, it created a huge problem for them and the supervisor asked me to come to her in the future if I had a problem. Good. This was another post office and another supervisor. Seems like corruption and incompetence in and out of government has never been greater.

Is this normal? I suspect that whoever stole the package knew what CRKT was. I can't believe I submitted the paperwork twice and both times I was told everything was in order. So I thought I'd ask here.
 
I understand your frustration. I did a trade and shipped out two knives to England over a month ago and still either of us have got our knives!:mad:
I work in a business that has a USPS contract unit and the post office screws alot of things up.
 
I've been selling and trading knives through USPS for less than a year now, and before then, many more packages. So far, I have only had one instance in which my package has gone missing. But that is one out of dozens, and it was at a post office I had never used before. My usual post office gets things out very fast.
 
In our area, lost mail was such a serious problem a few years back that Rep. Waxman (whom I dislike in every other respect) started an inquiry. It seems to have improved a bit so I think you're on the right track with activating your congressional rep.

DancesWithKnives
 
Confederate.....I would go to a different Post Office if all else fails. It seems that someone at that office knows you ship knives, or like you said, knows about CRKT. A call to the IG is definitely in order. The last time I checked, there were security cameras all over the PO. I would make it a point to have the video checked.

I hope everything works out for you. I really hate the incompetence & corruption of some of our postal workers.
 
Post Office theft of knives is rampant. There are several companies that even request that you use alternate names for them (ones that don't include the word 'knives') when mailing things back to them. Bark River requests that you use BRKT instead of spelling it out. All due to theft. I recently had to mail a package back to a knife vendor, the USPS counter attendant had me change the company's name on the shipping label to exclude the word 'knives' from the company's name.

About a year back, I filed for an inquiry about some irregularities in the postal delivery in my area. My mail stopped completely for about two weeks after the complaint. I inquired about that. Turns out the delivery person was caught tossing my mail. Was the person fired? No. He was put on a different route.

Post Office insurance can be a joke as well. There is a thread elsewhere by a custom knife maker who had a whole muti-blade shipment go missing. The Post Office denied his insurance claim because he could not prove the market value of his custom products to their satisfaction. He was (possibly still is) fighting with the claims people months after the shipment disappeared.

So, no, I do not trust the local post office. Nor do I have any faith in recovering anything from an insurance claim filed with them.
 
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Knives have never been a problem, but I do have problems with other things not getting here. For the past two months I haven't gotten a power bill in the mail. A few months back I didn't get my car insurance bill, but I constantly get jury duty notifications for people who no longer live here.

I've had plenty of knives shipped through the post office and actually prefer it over UPS because I trust things to stay in my mail box more than I trust them to stay on my door step. The one carrier I will NEVER ship with again is Fed Ex because they nearly lost my $2500 computer a few years ago and refused to do anything to help me solve their mistake.
 
Don't tell me these problems, I'm waiting for my Izula from New Graham knives and it's shipping to Canada through USPS. LOL.
 
I too had a knife disappear at the post office. It was a cheapy Tenacious, and the ebay seller gratiously sent another (seller poor_fish), but it can be very frustrating.

I just got my mailbox at home moved (a virtually impossible task) after trying for 15 years, thanks to an awesome new letter carrier named Tina.
 
First let me state that I have mailed thousands of packages by the United States Postal Service over the last 10 years and have only had 3-4 that did not make it to their destinations. I filed claims & did not have any problems with collecting on them. Yes.. there are guidelines to be followed (to protect the USPS from being taken advantage of) but they are reasonable & I have not found them difficult.

This past November, I had a package of knives go missing that I sent to a customer. I filled out the claim form (which took about 2-3 minutes), provided the insurance receipt & invoice from the sale & had a check in my hand from the postal service in about 2 weeks.

I would say that the way things have been mishandled is not normal but requiring the proper documentation is.

They will accept other things as proof of value if an invoice is not available.

Here is a link to guidelines for filing a claim with the USPS: http://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/609.htm

I wish you the best with your claim.
 
Some guidelines:

Don't package them at the post office. If you have to, wrap them in something so it's not visible.

Always order at least a DC#, and you should get insurence.

Don't put CRKT on the to line, simply put "Warrenty & Repair" with the address.

Ship FedEx. :D

I feel your pain. Personally I haven't ever lost anything in the mail except some personal letters, but my Mom lost her Citizens watch when she sent it in. No DC or insurence.... :(
 
Guess I've been very fortunate as I've never had a problem with a lost/stolen knife. In fact my local Post Office is the poster child for competance! Of course I have my packages shipped using overnight delivery for whichever carrier they are shipped through, though if given the chance I always request USPS Express due to it's reduced cost. Using the overnight services is more expensive, but they are safer.

If you have a thief in your post office there is not a lot you can do until they make a blunder and get caught. While you can't do much about the thief, you can do the things already suggested.

Good luck on the claim, and I hope you were insured for the entire worth!:):thumbup:
 
I have never had a problem. Good luck, I have had things lost to UPS and Fedex. A bureaucracy is a bureaucracy, at least you have a chain to complain up to.
 
I've never had a problem, but I always ship priority 2 day. This gets the package sent to UPS since the USPS doesn't own any airplanes.

USPS express uses UPS also.
 
I ordered a CQC-8 from Knifestore on Ebay a few weeks ago and
the del. conf. # said it had been delivered but there was no knife
in my mailbox! I called Knifestore(very helpful) to see if there was anything they could do and they gave me the # for my local p.o.. I called the carrier
supervisor and it showed up the next day :confused:. I was told by the guy at Knifestore that the USPS 800 number is practically worthless.

About a month ago I sent a knife international to Australia and it hasn't got
there yet. I'm not sure if it was lost, stolen or confiscated by customs. I
don't blame USPS for it because I have no clue what happened. Overall
I'd say I've had good luck with USPS. When sending a knife I always
use delivery confirmation just to know it got there. It's only 80 cents
more.

powernoodle, I've dealt with poor_fish :thumbup: many times and they are
my go too guys(with Knifestore) when buying knifes on ebay. I have a couple of
Ti Lites on the way.
 
I have had problems with the post office in the past,
Now when shipping knives I only use UPS or Fed EX.
I have had no problems with them.
 
I haven't had any real problems with USPS and they seem to integrate well with Canada Post to get packages to my door. Online tracking is very delayed so it has to be taken with a grain of salt, but not bad.

As for UPS, if you're in Canada and getting items from the US, DO NOT use UPS, as your customs broker and generally try to avoid them altogether. They charge massive import duty administration fees that can sometimes exceed the value of the item.
 
I've only really had one problem with the USPS. I had sent a backpack to a member here via USPS Express overnight. It left early in the day, had plenty of time to get there, and then it was a no show. So, the buyer and I took it with a grain of salt and said that since it was going across the country that it might take that extra day to get there. By day 3 my guy wasn't a happy camper and I was ticked as I had added on a lot of out of pocket money for the overnight and it hadn't shown up.

The pack was supposed to arrive for a weekend hike, and it didn't make it. So not only did I feel terrible, but my buyer wasn't happy at all. Finally, it arrived on a Sunday, 4 days later, and the PO had the nerve to ask for extra money for a Sunday delivery :mad: It was turned down so it was returned to me and a refund was in order. After checking with the tracking info, the USPS site said that they had "missent" it. WTF does that mean for me? That means that I was out about $30 and the package could have been shipped Priority for a day faster delivery :grumpy:

Other than that one incident, I have had zero problems with using USPS :D
 
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