Postal employees have been ordered to upsell pricey express or priority mail services to anyone sending anything more than a letter, according to an anonymous tipster. The directive comes straight from Washington to help combat the Post Office’s $1.1 billion operating deficit. To avoid the upsell, specifically ask if there is a cheaper way to ship your package. The anonymous tipster’s letter, inside…
Hi, I work the counter for the United States Postal Service and right now we are in a really big financial mess, they claim to have lost about one Billion dollars this past fiscal year. I was told yesterday by my supervisor (and I saw the written memo from the District) that stated we are not to offer first class, parcel post, or media mail.
If a customer comes to the counter with anything other than a letter, we are not to offer anything other than Express Mail or Priority mail.
So if a customer comes to the counter with a 5 ounce small package I am supposed to say “Good Afternoon, would you like to ship this Express Mail overnight guaranteed, it includes $100 of insurance and free tracking for only $16.50?”—Customer looks at you like you are crazy, especially if the package is just going across town—”Ok, then we can send it Priority Mail and it should get to its destination in 2-3 business days for $4.80 and we can add insurance for loss or damage, and for an extra 65 cents you can add delivery confirmation.” At this point I am supposed to shut up and let them either be duped into paying at least $4.80 or wait until they say – how about first class, or is there anything cheaper?—at that point I can offer the first class postage. For the package I described, a 5 ounce parcel, the cost would be $1.85 or almost $3 cheaper than Priority Mail. My advice is to always ask if there is a cheaper way to ship. Once asked we can tell you, but we won’t volunteer the information.
Some tips if you are going to the Post Office, Express Mail will get it there overnight. Priority mail AND first class will usually get it overnight if it is going within your city or usually within your state. If the package is going farther than a neighboring state the Priority Mail will get there in 2 or 3 days, with first class usually a day or two later than Priority. We are not supposed to offer parcel post mail—I do agree with that, parcel post is usually within a dollar or two pricewise of Priority Mail and will take anywhere from 7-14 days or even longer to get where it is going. If you are only sending books, media mail is the ultimate cheap way to go, usually 1/3 the price of parcel post. A warning though—media mail can be opened, and we do open it if we suspect it is not media mail. In that case the person recieving the package will pay the difference in price.
(Photo: justmyowntwocents)
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As an added resource, you can get most delivery maps from USPS, FedEx, and UPS from their website. They offer estimated days to delivery from your zip code. Useful for places like Amazon. I am within the two-day delivery period to the nearest Amazon warehouse. So I don’t upgrade or do Prime.
I use USPS almost exclusively. I think it’s by far the least expensive service with the most flexibility. When I order something that has to be shipped with Fedex or UPS, too often something regularly goes wrong with the shipment–either unexplained delays because the item ended up taking a trip around the US, or worse, it was mistakenly put in ground transportation rather than the overnight delivery I paid for.
Aside from my preference for USPS, I do think any business that offers a premium service without telling the customer about a more cost-efficient option, is engaging in a scummy practice. But it is so widely practiced, that I hate to see the USPS singled out for it.
Whenever I’m sending something other than a letter (which I just put a stamp on and throw in a mailbox) I always state that I want to send it “the cheapest way possible.” If it’s something that needs to get there fast, or needs to be tracked, I use UPS or FedEx.
Now, as a former postal employee (one of the worst jobs I ever had), I have to come to their defense. If you think about the sheer volume of mail they deal with day in and day out, it’s utterly amazing that you can put a stamp on a letter or a card, put it in a mailbox, and almost guarantee that it’s going to get anywhere in the country in a matter of days. When you think about it, it’s pretty awesome and something we too often take for granted.
Paxetaurora and Kirk Douglas, agreed. Not to mention Canada Post’s strike issues (and the only other option is Purlolator? ouch!) Americans have no idea how lucky we are, when you consider what other countries pay and what they get in terms of service.
If you are a moderate shipper, you generally have a different perception than someone who only goes to the post office once in a blue moon – and boy, do those folks get steamed around Christmas! Even with the occasional sullen clerk or clueless manager, I’ve been generally pleased using USPS.
If you are a very heavy shipper, yes, if the fuel surcharges don’t hit you, then you can probably negotiate a nice deal with UPS or FedEx Ground. For the rest of us, USPS is still the best thing going, even if many average people know less about the system than they used to (for all the excellent reasons explained by theysaidwhat).
For instance, thelushie states that media mail takes 2-8 weeks. Not strictly true. That’s accurate for packages which are hand-written or otherwise use a non-PC Postage label. If you use either the PayPal shipping, or better yet Endicia (or even the inferior Stamps.com), it takes about a week – my Endicia average for this summer was 6 days for Media Mail.
Sorry to hear about AdvocatesDevil’s difficulty getting the free boxes. I think it’s really a regional thing. When we lived in coastal Oregon, we suspected that the local offices (always starving for the free boxes) took them, as we ended up having to reorder one shipment completely, never receiving it. (We saw other questionable things go on at that office.)
Never been a problem here in SE Texas, they arrived on time in about a week. Try complaining to your local PCC (postal customers council) and see if that does the trick.
Thanks for the info, Consumerist. A $1.1 Billion deficit…
I am shocked, SHOCKED, that my postman just shoved my mail into someone else’s mailbox on Friday.
Priority Mail is not guaranteed to get there in 2-3 days, it’s just first class for heavier things. Everything gets lumped together anyway…
bfore I moved we had nothing but trouble from the usps. From the carriers putting out mail in other boxes or just tossing it in their yeards to throwing trash in our yard. I’ve gone paperless with everything of importance and the rest is the junk you can’t unsubscribe from, they junk the usps delivers to resident. I’m tempted to pull the mailbox out of the ground and see what they do.
I use FedEx at work. USPS is okay but I can’t really track anything. I’ve used Shipping Assistant, but even though it gives you a tracking number, when you enter it, you get NO useful information.
For my own personal stuff, I just use the regular mail unless I’m concerned about the contents. I can call FedEx and get after them if something funky is happening with my package. It’s really difficult to reach anyone at the post office.
I was aghast at this upsale effort. I walked up to the window and said, “I want to send this the cheapest way possible, no insurance or anything” and the clerk did exactly what the original poster described. I really really hate upsells and go out of my way to preempt them and was quite surprised to see the USPS lay it on so heavy.
Um, what the hell happened to USPS? Two years ago USPS was the only branch of the government that was debt free. How did it get itself into this pickle, and do not even try to say it is because of gas prices…
@EE:
Why can it not be because of gas prices? Gas is no doubt a huge expense for the USPS. By law, postage rates cannot increase faster than the rate of inflation. Gas prices have increased many, many times faster than the rate of inflation. Do the math.
Interesting. When I went to the post office this weekend, the self-serve kiosk wouldn’t let me ship first class or parcel — it gave me a message saying “these options are not available at this time”. The only choices I could make were Priority and Express.
I ended up having to wait in line for 20 minutes to ask for first class. Blargh.
why’s that?
Congress for some specific reasons is afraid of it.
By law, postage rates cannot increase faster than the rate of inflation.
I don’t think this is the case, anymore (if it ever was). The Postal Reorganization Act of 2006 pretty much leaves rate setting up to Board of Governors, with little or not outside oversight.
They also decided to require an expensive permit to send bound printed matter, so that rate is effectively wiped out for small shippers.
USPS should pull a United and “Double Charge” all “Current Resident” Junk Mail. This would drastically cut the amount of mail being distributed, this cutting costs.
@strife1012:
IIRC, the post office actually makes money off of junk mail. Delivering those “have you seen me” cards with missing children on the front and ads on the back are actually profitable to deliver.
I could be wrong, but that’s what I’ve always heard.
Too bad USPS doesn’t institute the same policy to all the financial institutions sending junk mail. Instead they get a discounted rate and the offers are usually a ripoff. Yet USPS tries to sqeeze every last nickel out of the average consumer sending a single item. I believe the term, “douchebags”, applys to USPS.
This isn’t really a big inconvenience to me. I still send USPS with Priority and Mail Reciept. I’ve never had a problem with my packages getting lost through USPS.
SinisterMatt -
Um, actually I’ve been dropping off packages at a contract station here in town about three times a week for the past six months. No problems, no questions, takes about ten seconds at the counter.
If you can drop it in a Blue Box, you can drop it off at a contract station.
- Another Matt (although not quite as sinister)
@mlradio:
Okay, then it must be the particular one I went to. Maybe he was being prickly or something that day.
Cheers!
>>I’ve used Shipping Assistant, but even though it gives you a tracking number, when you enter it, you get NO useful information.<<
That’s because it’s not a tracking number, it’s a DELIVERY CONFIRMATION number. All it does is show the date and time the package was delivered to its final destination zip code, and that’s it. Any intermediate scans between point A and point B are just a bonus – often just automated scans done in the giant processing centers.
At only eighteen cents for a delivery confirmation number (and free on priority mail packages), it’s not designed for much more than a single scan. If you want full tracking, you need to pay for it (i.e. UPS and DHL)
@mlradio: 18 cents? Free? What are you talking about?
@silver-bolt: If you have online service, delivery confirmation is 18 cents for packages sent Media Mail and so on, and free with Priority Mail.
Few days ago I went to the post office to ship a small book, and for what used to be able to ship through first class, the person at the counter was trying to ask me to ship using priority or parcel post. Both well over $4.
I ended up shipping the slow media mail…
Making it even pricier to mail my porn! BAH!
Thank goodness I just use those machines that weigh my packages and select first class. Talking to people is overrated anyhow.
I was shipping out some video games the other day and the lady at the counter asked if I wanted to ship my packages out with Priority Mail in order “to be a big spender and pay 25 cents extra to show I care”.
I’m sorry, but my feelings rarely carry a price tag under 5 dollars.
I would have gotten suckered today if I hadn’t read this. The guy in front of me sure did.