It's all over local news now and complaints have gotten to where both U.S. senators and other local officials are getting involved. Massive numbers of packages and letters FROM and TO the greater Atlanta region are being delayed, often for weeks.

The culprit is the bungled opening of a "state of the art" processing center in Palmetto, GA, a suburb, on Feb. 24. Training problems, operational problems or what-not have led to massive backups and delays being common. This affects all kinds of mail going from and to addresses in North Georgia. I would compare the service impact to getting hit with a destructive natural disaster, like a hurricane, both in extent and duration. Amazon should post an advisory.

I am in the affected area and started getting buyer messages and now a trickle of A-Zs and looked into it on my Internet postage software. It was really alarming, comparable to the worst of the pandemic era.

I looked at the mailout dates Feb. 21 thru March 11 (a week before I'm posting this, to give it time).

In that time period I mailed out 45 total items. All should have been delivered by now based on USPS delivery times, and all are to the 48 US. Only 15 of the 45 are showing as delivered as I write this.

Of the 30 still outstanding, 29 are still stalled in the Atlanta area according to the delivery confirms. A typical delay between scans once stalled is 2-3 weeks.

The complaints that have gotten the senators and local officials involved and contacting Louis DeJoy, the postmaster general, are mostly about missing incoming mail that's important (prescriptions, checks, etc.), though I'm sure they're also hearing from businesses.

Why not switch to UPS or someone else? That would force a price increase that I'm concerned the market will not support because the items are low-value. My packages also are considered "odd-sized" by some carriers (cylindrical, approaching 2 feet long in some cases), and any significant surcharges against that are deal-breakers for other carriers. Though I will continue to investigate options.

As in the pandemic meltdowns (that peaked in summer 2022, IIRC), the trickle of A-Zs affecting ODR is maddening, and Amazon is unhelpful with its automated "package may be lost" message after X number of days. No, the package isn't lost, and that's just uninformed speculation without any information on Amazon's part. I always encourage people to get it straight from the horse's mouth on the carrier's website without that filter, but some see it as "proof" the item is lost even though Amazon can declare no such thing.

Maybe I need to start insuring everything and if it goes past 30 days, file a claim. Most aren't that extreme, and I have both the handling and delivery times already close to maxed as a defensive measure. Have not been in the get-it-there-yesterday business since the pandemic problems.

Still, many buyers start wanting refunds well before 30 days and there's the moral-hazard problem in refunding on an item you're still 99% sure they will receive. Not news to anyone and no empathy is being asked for here. This is intended to inform.

I'd be happy to provide local-media links from the past week as background on this problem, but the bot would strip them out. My own problems with this aside, I think it merits an advisory similar to what we get with severe weather or major hurricane damage in places because the service impact is comparable. Also might be helpful for those who have an easier time shifting to another carrier to avoid the problem, as it's also delaying incoming mail.