WARNING: USPS shops are disappearing from my inbox with no forewarning

November 03, 2021 01:49AM

I had 23 in my inbox this morning. I went out and completed 5, came home and submitted them. I then was preparing the four I had planned for tomorrow. I was supposed to have 18 left. It showed 7 in the inbox and 6 in "applications". Every couple of hours I check to see if there are any more changes/ surprises. I now have 7 in the inbox and 3 in applications. All of the locations I had planned for tomorrow have disappeared.
I have not gotten an email stating this would be happening or why, they are just gone.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2021 04:00AM by a-scho.

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November 03, 2021 03:29AM

Same. Did not receive a notice that shops were being removed from my inbox.

November 03, 2021 05:48AM

Are you 100% positive every shop was in your inbox and not a mixture of applications & inbox? If a shop is in your 'applications' it is NOT 'your' shop! It has not been assigned to you, you are never to complete a shop until it appears in your inbox.
An application just means you would like to complete the shop, a scheduler may have hundreds of applications for a single shop and until that scheduler decides who is getting that shop it will show in the applications box of EVERY SINGLE PERSON who applied for it. When it is assigned it will disappear from all but the shopper who it was assigned to, and for that shopper they will see it in their inbox.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2021 05:50AM by luckygirl0100.

November 03, 2021 06:09AM

@luckygirl0100 wrote:

Are you 100% positive every shop was in your inbox and not a mixture of applications & inbox?

USPS Regular Box Shops are self-assigned.

So yes, all my shops were in my Inbox, and were assigned to me.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2021 06:15AM by bocasman.

November 03, 2021 06:33AM

USPS are not self assign in my region. I have been doing them for years and always have to wait to get them assigned. Sometimes it is very quick so it appears to be self assign. I also get a specific email telling me the location(s) are assigned.

November 03, 2021 12:39PM

They are self assign in my area. Last week, I had some assigned but let the scheduler know it had not been 18 days since I had done the same scenario at one location. Apparently, someone else had released the next round too early so she had to remove them.

November 03, 2021 01:49PM

This is exactly what I had questioned in another thread. The rotation. I, too, was able to self assign a bunch of shops for November and none had start dates. I also emailed the scheduler and MSC to find out about the 18 day rule. A representative (the scheduler never responded at all) emailed me back, five days later, and told me if there was no start date I can start anytime. I replied to her email to confirm that I could start any time. A second email from her confirmed that I could start any time. Later the same day, the same representative emailed me stating that start dates were now assigned and some shops have been removed from my inbox. I am lucky that I used my better judgment in not attempting any of the shops that I know I had done within 18 days. I would have been totally screwed and out of money and time if I had listened to the representative's initial advice. And there was no apology for the initial misinformation, either. So, I guess, you can self assign as much as you want but, at their leisure, the MSC will let you know when you can do the shops. And only if you hunt someone down who will respond. Don't try planning a day or route because things will change. Nice.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/03/2021 01:51PM by sestrahelena.

November 03, 2021 03:35PM

Usually they are not self assign, but these were. They were all in my inbox, not applications. I made sure to not do a shop before the 18 days. The ones that disappeared were ones I had not done in months. I had some shops in my inbox that yesterday appeared in applications ( someone took them from my inbox and put them there, not me) And now they're disappearing from applications. The shops I still have have date changes.
If the initial date window of the shops was the problem, they should have changed the dates, sent an email stating the change, and give us the option of cancelling shops if they no longer work with the new dates. But, it is not cool to just remove shops with zero communication from them.

November 03, 2021 05:27PM

I wonder what my shopper rating would look like if I had cancelled and/or rescheduled as many assignments as this company has with me over the last few years.

November 03, 2021 05:46PM

I wouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to complete the shops. I still have shops on their shop metrics board that have been pending payment since 10-14. It sounds like they have some issues going on with scheduling and editing. But on the bright side….. they sent out their holiday payment email stating that they will be paying 2 times per week now. There may not be any shops processed to be paid, but it’s a nice marketing tool to bait shoppers.

November 03, 2021 06:44PM

I am wondering if a lot of these changes you all seem to be getting might have something to do with the state that the USPS is in these days. It seems evident to me that they have cut way back on their shopping program in the past few months. In the big city (Los Angeles ) where we used to have pages and pages of 50 shop per page shops every month now I am seeing perhaps 25 shops total per month. I use a 15 mile radius. It seems the locations that were shopped every month before (for reg box) are now shopped once per quarter and some perhaps less frequently and the hazmat list is even shorter than that. In Oct there was a page of shops but Nov just a handful.
My conclusion is that along with cancelling post office hours and service times and trying to even cancel delivery days they are probably cutting way back on the shopping program and perhaps the msc has to re correct their shop lists whenever they get a notice from their client.

November 04, 2021 11:38AM

USPS Regular Box is self assign for shoppers with a grade of 8 or higher.
We did have it set to drop off automatically if not submitted by the due date, but that was turned off earlier this week. Schedulers will now have to manually cancel the overdue shops, which is how it has typically been handled.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/2021 11:39AM by celeste.bordenipsos.com.

November 06, 2021 03:24PM

Pure speculation but based upon events and emails I have received about the USPS shops. The new reroll allowed me to self-assign but the end dates were in December, which I found odd. I scheduled my first shops about 7-10 days out. None removed. Then an email came about the end date being so far out. Since then, the regular box shops have an end date within 1-2 weeks.

Where your end dates (or due by dates) more than 7-10 days from the assigned date?

Do not read so much, look about you and think of what you see there.
Richard Feynman-- letter to Ashok Arora, 4 January 1967, published in Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track (2005) p. 230

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WARNING: USPS shops are disappearing from my inbox with no forewarning

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