USPS Informed Delivery Useless?

I’ve had Informed Delivery from the USPS for years. When it’s working I get an email when there’s going to be delivery to my mailbox showing pictures of the front of the envelope(s).

I originally got this when I had a PO Box so I wouldn’t have to make a trip when there was no mail there. It worked great and when I closed the PO Box, I transferred it to my home address where it also worked great.

Until about a month ago. Then I started getting daily messages that said “Mailpieces that we do not have an image for are included in today’s mail.” I used to get that message once in a while, and when I did I invariably also had several images of mail that was coming and this would be an outlier–some piece that might be too big, or bulk rate, or something.

But about a month ago that all changed and I only get the no image message no matter what goes into my mailbox that day.

I know there’s a bunch of crap going on with the new postmaster general and all the usual conspiracy theories about mail in vote fraud, but these images should be made by the sorting machines somewhere and then sent out to my email address. There are still some sorting machines somewhere. Even if there are fewer I refuse to believe that every piece of mail is being hand sorted, end-to-end.

I can’t find anything to explain it on an official site. I can find other people complaining about the same thing as me. What about you, fellow Dopers? Anyone else using this system and not getting satisfaction?

I think USPS is just off the rails right now, and anything/everything could happen. For example, I ordered something and had it shipped with a signature required. The vendor sent it via USPS, and the tracking stuff said that it hadn’t even been picked up for four days, at which point it was delivered without a signature. Then the tracking stuff said it was undeliverable, etc…

Plus, the Informed Delivery that we get seems to be only somewhat related to what we get any particular day- it’s like they take a picture of what they think they’ll deliver, but they may or may not actually get to it that day.

And other times, we just don’t get any mail at all. Which is odd; living here for 12 years, and only in the last 6-9 months has that ever been common. Most of the time we got something in the mail every single day that they deliver. And some stuff just never shows up at all.

I saw something featured in the news this morning that a Federal Court Judge ordered USPS to fast track all election ballot mail and deliver it to the correct destination same day or first thing this morning. They have been failing to do so since last week or longer. Their effectiveness rate is 91% (self reported) but that is still too low. The reason, USPS says, is that they are short staffed due to COVID. So basically, they are working 24/7 just to process voting ballots, and everything else is secondary. Hence the chaos and delays on the rest of the mail.

Ditto most of what bump said. Quality of service is definitely down in the past few months. A couipla months back we - and everyone in our apartment building - got absolutely nothing for almost a week.

That said, I do find that Informed Delivery helpful. I get the “Mailpieces that we do not have an image for are included in today’s mail” message once or twice a week.

And how does that compare to the mail you’re getting? Are you getting Informed Delivery with pictures for some of your mail?

I still get all the pictures and the ones without pictures are just as rare as they’ve always been. Usually just a few a month.
What I have been noticing is that the emails come much later in the day. Where they used to show up right around 8am, now I get them some time between 8am and 3pm.

Similar to Joey_P. If I see the picture, I will definitely receive it, but maybe not until the next day or even the day after. Actually, “next day” is probably most of the time nowadays.

And whereas we used to receive our mail consistently around lunchtime, it now comes in the 6-8 pm area.

Whatever gets emailed to me, with rare exception, shows up the same day.

I’ve had numerous international packages from Europe that are tracked via USPS fail to arrive. The tracking just stops. 2 of those are envelopes. Why would a thief target tracked envelopes? Why not steal untracked? It makes their bosses and managers look bad. I guess they don’t plan to continue their career at USPS. There is nothing we can do since the origin is outside the USA.

I’m not having problems with Informed Delivery, other than that right now it sometimes takes a day between scan and the mail piece landing in the box. I’m doing my part for the election by using USPS as little as possible until midnight Tuesday.

The only actual picture I’ve received over the last few weeks was for a piece of junk mail. Other than that pretty much a daily email with “Mailpieces that we do not have an image for are included in today’s mail.”

I get photos of mail every day. The notice about mail pieces not included always applies to flyers and junk mail.

I’m guessing that tracked envelopes are more likely to contain something of value.

Informed delivery is just as accurate as always for me.

Wonder if there’s some machine malfunction in your local post office?

I sometimes get this notation for hand-addressed envelopes as well.

It’s working fine for me, too. The notices about mail not included is usually either supermarket ads, other junk mail, or The New Yorker.

Interestingly, yesterday I got a correct Informed Delivery showing 6 pieces of first class mail. “Huzzah!,” I said, “posting to SDMB scared USPS back into giving me the service I expected!” It’s the first time that has happened in weeks.

But then, today, back to the note about mail that there’s no picture of. Oh well. I’m glad to see it’s working correctly for so many and the whole service didn’t just get chopped off by current events.

Kind of relieved to read this thread. Been waiting for a coupe of expensive online-bought items, shipping from San Diego to my overseas location. Took a week to get to LA. After that it’s been departing and arriving two terminals in LA twice a day for another two weeks. It left LA again today, hopefully for real this time.

(Skipping most of the thread) A good reason to sign up for Informed Delivery is to pre-empt a scammer from doing so, and re-directing your mail. It’s too easy to sign up - they didn’t verify my identity when I signed up. Now that I have an account, I’d get notified if someone tries to sign up in my name.

There must beca way to turn off pictures. I turned off a bunch of the notifications when I signed up. I now only get emails when I get a package.

I had to get physical mail containing codes in order to sign up for the 3 addresses I track. Could be regional difference.