Originally Posted by GUWonder

BLS website status updates can be rather misleading or even absolutely inaccurate.

The thing that worked for me was to go to the Consulates/Embassies to pick up the visas myself and disintermediate the contractors out of the pick-up and delivery process; I am not sure how amenable they are for doing that in your kind of circumstances but it worked for me as I had ways to know what was going on. Saved me anywhere between 3 hours and 25.5 hours to get BLS and its likes out of the tail end of the process.