by Larry Geller

It took a while, but I think I got the answer today on what happens to packages sent to Hawaii that are routed through the Richmond, CA sort facility.

I wrote about packages disappearing into the black hole of this facility in three articles:

Together, they have receive more comments than anything else I’ve posted. It seems many people have been frustrated by losing packages that go through the Richmond Sort Facility.

Typically, it seems that packages are tracked going in. And they stay there ‘way past the expected delivery date. Calls to various post offices to find out what happened to the packages don’t yield any information. And time passes. Senders are frustrated because the expected delivery date has long passed.

Here’s what I found out today from a postal employee who shall remain nameless.

Yes, packages are scanned as they enter the sort facility. But they aren’t scanned when they leave. Inside the sort facility they are sorted, of course, and packages destined for Hawaii (or Guam, etc.) are loaded into containers.

Clearly, containers can’t be sent out with only a couple of packages bouncing around on the bottom. So the container stays until it gets filled. Then it is loaded on a boat.

There is no outgoing scan because the package is inside a container when it finally exits the facility. Now, in this computer age you’d think they could scan it going into the container and have the computer remember to post the scan when the container finally moves out, but no, they don’t do that. It just doesn’t get scanned.

The package is next scanned after it reaches the next sort facility (in Hawaii, etc.). I suspect that scan could occur on the same day it moves out for delivery, they are pretty efficient here.

I thanked the employee for the explanation (simple, isn’t it?) and remarked that the Richmond Sort Facility has seemed like a black hole to many people. She said “it is a black hole.”

So you see why I’m not mentioning her name.

Bottom line, it seems that “expected delivery dates” for packages headed into a container at Richmond are pure fiction. They could do better.