Hello Everyone,
I ordered an item from Amazon and got a text at 10:45 this evening saying it was delivered. Sure enough i go to our mailbox and it’s there. It wasn’t there at 6pm when I got our regular mail from the box.
So, who’s doing the late night deliveries? Is it USES or someone else? I was under the impression that only USPS can put something in your mailbox. But I didn’t think they ran routes in the evening.
It should be the USPS. In my area, there is a Postal employee who does the non-standard Amazon deliveries (such as Sundays) as a separate run. If they were doing a late run to cover off a late arriving truck or something, I could see it happening. This is the time of year when I see the FedEx guy fairly late at night too.
They deliver until the truck is empty. To most zips, the business address mail gets delivered first, then home deliveries are very often after 6 pm in December.
I’m one of those Sunday-only Amazon-only guys. At this time of year, a carrier may have to deliver three full truck-loads before they’re done for the day. And while it goes against the contract, the local office has asked me numerous times to come in during the week to run packages. In addition to the number of packages that need to be delivered, if a particular office is short-staffed, the poor schmucks working that day just have to keep going until it’s done. This time of year is nutso, and we are out delivering until the last truck we fill truck is empty. Sometimes, if things are looking precarious on a Sunday, we’ll stop delivering first class packages and just do the Amazon and Priority. But that just means the carriers will have even more do do on Monday, which is already a busy day for them.
After delivering packages for the past two months, I have a whole new respect for the people delivering the mail.
When I was walking the dog last night, the next block over was only just getting its regular mail delivery at a little bit after 8 p.m. I actually had no idea they went this late, but apparently they do. So it wouldn’t surprise me if a late night run got there nearly at 11 p.m. this time of year.
This isn’t new. Way back when I delivered mail summers during college. I worked as a floater, going from office to office to fail in as needed. One day I returned from delivering a route when I got told I had another route to deliver. That went after dark. Remember it was summer; darkness started around nine. Supervisors make do.
You’re right. By law, only postage-paid US Postal Service mail and parcels can be put into a mailbox. If it’s in the mailbox, it was put there by a Postal Service employee. They apparently get enough business from the various shipping-company “last mile delivery” services (likeFedEx Smartpost or UPS Mail Innovations) to justify late-night parcel runs outside of normal delivery rounds.
At work, our mail lady stops to use our bathroom once a week or so. She explained yesterday that she usually only does “one trip” on her route. In December she does two and sometimes three. She commented on how we must really love Amazon (I get all my deliveries at work, as do a number of employees).
FWIW, I got a notification that my USPS Amazon package had been delivered at 12:56 AM today. It had actually reached my mailbox by at least 5:30 PM yesterday because I’d picked it up then. So, the timing may have been off between your alert and the delivery - it may have come anytime between 6 and 10:45.
My apartment building recently had a mail delivery after 10PM. (I live across the hall from the mailbox.) We’re on the end of the route anyway, and have had early evening deliveries, but never THAT late.
I found out later that our regular mail carrier was in an accident (the person who told me was not at liberty to give further details) and may not be back to work, period. 
So your job was to deliver the mail to the wrong address? :o
It could be the carrier was sick that day and they had to divide his route between other carriers.
Unless things have changed in the three years since I retired from USPS, they go nuts making sure Amazon packages are delivered. Special pallet which you scan the bar code, scan each package and deliver a total count to the carrier supervisor. Supervisor at the end of the day will check each Amazon package to make sure it was delivered. Only express (or Priority Express as they call it) get similiar; clerks worry about certified and registered.
Recently for a while Amazon was using dmaller companies for some of its deliveries but at least in my case they seem to have backed off on that. I suppose they could have put it in your mailbox which they shouldn’t have.
Other companies such as FedEx, UPS and DHL will deliver packages to the post office to have them deliver to customers (they have agreements). UPS is (was) notorious for putting other labels on the bar code label we scanned and the second label would not come off easily. The supervisor was able to access UPS to find the right delivery number; us clerks couldn’t.