Really POd at USPS

[thedavidzoo]

Gotta rant. I'm just so pi88ed off now.

On Thursday I bagged up 10 adult fish for an "overnight" USPS Priority EXPRESS shipment to NYC.
New bags, knotted, rubberbanded, double bagged, fish fasted at least 48 hours, clean water (although not a whole lot), lots of air, left a little expansion space. Bags upright and snug, newspaper padding, styro, 2 heat packs taped on top. Box marked fragile, this end up, etc.

Anyway, box was supposed to arrive Fri by 3pm as Hold For Pickup by buyer at his post office. Well, box finally gets in Saturday afternoon! Bags leaked, some ended up totally flat underneath others. Two fish dead, one dies later, hope the rest make it.

So, I am asking how this could have happened. I have shipped several times before and never had leaky bags and such problems. I'm just trying to piece together what might have gone wrong. Is it possible a postal employee opened the box to have a look (you now, suspicious sloshing sounds), messed around with my packing job such that all hell eventually broke loose?
Could the bags have "popped" in the airplane causing them to settle and squash each other?
I just don't see a logical reason this should have happened. Any ideas from past experience?

Of course I am going to file a claim against their "guaranteed" arrival time, but that isn't going to help my babies...

 

[mchambers]

Wow, that's really awful. I'm so sorry. No idea how it could have happened.

 

[Frank Cowherd]

Sounds like you may never know what happened. Double bagged fish almost never leak.

Questions:
Did you get pictures to confirm deaths?
Why did you use heat packs? Overnight shipments should not need them since the post office mainly uses heated places to sort and hold packages.
BTW, heat packs can get too hot so need to be insulated from the bag itself with cardboard or such. Heat packs also need access to air to be able to generate heat, so they need a hole to the outside of the box about where they are positioned. COuld it be that the bags got too hot and failed? Probably never know.
Did the fish you send have spines that could have punctured the bags? IF so the thing people do is put a layer of newspaper or some thick black plastic between the double bags to help prevent the spine from penetrating both bags.
If you had access to the failed bags you might be able to tell more as to what happened.
The only other thing I can think of is that there are always a few bags in a 1000 that have some manufacturer's defect, like a weak seam or even a real thin side.

If you learn what happened, let us know.

BTW in case you did not figure it out, I am not a fan of heat packs. They cause as many problems as they solve.

 

[Tangcollector]

Don't blame yourself, Sounds like you did everything right. Sorry about the loss. But I would guess outside interference because I can see one bag leaking, but multiple bags failing is highly unlikely. Even if the package was mistreated. If you have used other bags from that batch with no other issues than outside interference of some kind is the most likely cause. Again, sorry about your losses. Hope the rest make it.

 

[thedavidzoo]

I have used one heat pack in the past with smaller boxes and 2-3 day Priority mail. All seemed well.
Maybe this time I didn't need 2 heat packs for an "overnighter", but saw the low temps at night here and in NY and figured better safe than sorry. As the shipment was evidently delayed, I was glad I had them in there, or so I thought. They were wrapped in newspaper and taped to the styro lid, so should not have been in direct contact with the bags.

The bags were new from YFS. Maybe I'll fill some and keep an eye on them to see if they leak.

I dropped off the box at my local PO at 4pm and saw it didn't leave Dulles until 6am the next morning. I don't know about the flight schedules, but that seems like a long time to hang around (where?, warehouse, truck, tarmac) for an "expedited" shipment.

I'm hoping to get more details from the buyer. He did send me numerous pics of flat bags and dead fish, but I can't tell what went wrong from them alone. The buyer kept saying the bottom bags were pretty much empty and the top bags had a little more water in them. I can't imagine bags would have rearranged themselves so much, even after leaking, that some could be on the bottom and some on top. Placed vertically and snugly in the box, I'd think they would just kinda deflate and sink vertically into themselves...unless the box was also REALLY tossed around.

It is one thing to have it be someone else's fault, someone to blame, but if it was somehow my fault...I'd feel even worse.
Frustrating.

 

[thedavidzoo]

Oh, no spines on these fish.
I'd like to believe that if the shipment hadn't been a day late, the fish might have survived, even with bag challenges...

Say a box is REALLY tossed around, how much trauma do you think a fish would sustain? I'd think the more water, the better, for cushioning. I can imagine fish being smacked against the inside of the bag is not so pleasant.

 

[Jt731]

On the hottest day of last year, the postman driving my truck marked my package as delivered and then let the box sit in his truck in the heat the entire next day before delivering. Lost a third of my livestock.

Washington dc are postal service is woeful, and there have been numerous stories over the past few years how understaffed they are in the area. Given the option, I usually get ups or fed ex (when Amazon offers parcel they are all screwed)

 

[thedavidzoo]

4th fish died.
Plot thickens. Well, the box was not opened enroute by postal employees.

Buyer said there was an ammonia smell in the bags. If fish have been fasted for 48-72 hours, could the ammonia build up that much within 2 days with fresh water? Could the ammonia smell be from after the fish died in the bag, decomposition?
I suppose more water would have been better in the bags no matter what.

Anyway, just trying to avoid such problems in the future.

 

[chriscoli]

I'm so sorry Esther.

As for the ammonia smell, I think it'll be hard to tell. Dead fish will definitely have a strong smell, but I know that I ALWAYS smell ammonia when I open a bagged fish unless it's only been in there an hour or so. I think much of that depends on the sensitivity of the individual opening the bag.

I'm going to guess it was rough handling of the box enroute.

 

[Frank Cowherd]

You might try a test at home. Fill the same number of bags with water and place in a container as you would have in the shipped box. If the ones on bottom start leaking after a day, then the method you used to seal the bags is not sufficient when there is weight (the water filled bags on top) on them. IF that is the case you need stronger, thicker or wider, rubber bands.

 

[Vinh2o]

If you ship a lot and have a good relationship with your local post office ask to have a meeting with your local branches manager. Let him know that ship lots of fish and need to have this handled or you will have to consider using other companies.


Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app

 

[thedavidzoo]

I tie the top of the bag into a TIGHT knot, then twist the end, fold over and add a new rubber band that starts wrapped under the knot and extends all over the twisted folded part. All this goes upright into a 2nd bag that is also tightly knotted at the top.

I had a single knotted bag upside down all night and it didn't leak anywhere.

 

[Jt731]

My latest post office story. I order 8 Chilatherina alleni 'WAPOGA' and due to all the other fun I have the shipper have them held at the post office

I sign up for text alerts and get one stating it was delivered, so off to the post office

I get to the counter, and I'm explaining it all to the woman, and she's not really getting it. So finally I hand her the phone and show her, and she starts looking around.

After a few looks she says out loud, what does it look like, and I point to the box (it was not on the label side and far away or I would have seen my number) and say it probably looks exactly like that. She says, can't be that, that is an express box. So I say it was sent express, she looks at the phone, looks at the box and says oh that's not it.

So she sends me to talk to the supervisor, who looks around, can't find box either.

At this point, the guy behind me has gotten so frustrated with waiting he starts yelling at the counter lady and and the supervisor.

I grew up in the 80s, you do not start yelling and screaming in a post office

So I left (they called the cops on him finally). Later, around 3, I saw the tracking page said delivery tomorrow and decided to call them again, and this time they found it. So I return, the woman sheepishly smiles at me and we laugh a bit and luckily the fish are fine.

 

[verbal]

Pick up at the post office can be a bit hit or miss. It can be a great idea if temperatures are extreme, but they often have trouble finding the package at the post office.