In the years since the the United States Postal Service sponsored Lance Armstrong’s multiple Tour de France victories, the USPS has fallen into a serious financial crisis, and Armstrong has been exposed as a doping cheater and/or cheating dope. This chain of events has an obvious solution: why doesn’t the government sue Armstrong’s management and get that sponsorship money back? [More]
U.S. Government Sues Lance Armstrong To Get Post Office Sponsorship Money Back
By April 24, 2013
USPS Grants Saturday Mail Delivery A Stay Of Execution After All
By April 10, 2013
Break out the high fives and order the cake — the United States Postal Service says it won’t be killing off Saturday mail delivery. At least, it’s not going to do that anytime soon. The agency had threatened to stop the service out of budgetary concerns, the main concern being that it doesn’t have much cash. [More]
Is The USPS More Likely To Lose Boxes Emblazoned With The Word ‘Atheist’?
By March 27, 2013
Here’s something odd. Would you think that packages would get lost more or less often according to the brand on the box or the words on their packaging? That shouldn’t be the case. A German company that sells handmade, minimalist shoes, did a cool branding thing and uses tape with the company’s name printed on it to seal their shipping boxes. That company’s name? “Atheist.” They noticed that a lot of packages sent to the United States were significantly delayed, and wondered why that was. So they conducted an experiment. That experiment proved that if you want a package to get lost, brand it with the word “ATHEIST.” [More]
Rallies Supporting Saturday Mail Delivery Held Nationwide, But Are They Pointless?
By March 25, 2013
Last week, Congress passed a budget bill that keeps the federal government going until the end of the federal budget year on September 30, and averts the scary and inconvenient consequences of a government shutdown. That’s good. There’s an interesting provision, though: like past budget bills, it specifically says that the U.S. Postal service can’t cut back on mail delivery, which it had planned to do in August. Oops. But while groups of letter carriers and supporters held rallies nationwide yesterday, has the crisis been averted? Yes. No. We’re not really sure. [More]
Apparently My Mailman Doesn’t Feel The Slot Marked “Letters” Works For Delivering Mail
By March 20, 2013
Kristin has lived in her L.A. apartment for five years, but as long as she’s lived there she’s never been confronted with the kind of sassiness she’s just been confronted with on the part of the United States Postal Service. She tells Consumerist her apartment is part of a four-plex with no locked lobby, and her door has a clearly marked, obviously quite old mail slot marked “letters.” What could possibly go in there? [More]
UPS SurePost Gets Package To My Door Four Days Late, Smushed
By March 12, 2013
“There’s a reason the USPS is going bankrupt, and it’s because of their shoddy customer service,” read a subject line in our tips mailbox. Jeremy’s package, shipped UPS, got handed off to the U.S. Postal Service, and at some point things went very wrong. UPS SurePost is that company’s answer to FedEx SmartPost: a service that uses the private companies’ systems to get packages from the sender to sort of near their destinations, then depends on the U.S. Postal Service to travel the last leg to your doorstep. [More]
Postal Service Launching Clothing Line Because The Mailman Is The Epitome Of Style
By February 19, 2013
For all those times you sat by the window, admiring the mailman’s way with long shorts and tall socks, the United States Postal Service is here for you, finally. The agency announced it’s looking for new ways to make money while it struggles financially, and that includes a new clothing line it’s planning. [More]
Post Office Announces End Of Saturday Delivery, 63% Of Americans Shrug
By February 13, 2013
Despite the fact that some Netflix DVD subscribers will be put out, a new Gallup poll shows that for the most part, Americans are in favor of the U.S. Postal Service’s plan to terminate Saturday mail delivery. The survey showed that 63% of Americans are in favor of ending Saturday mail as a way for the USPS to help fix its financial woes. [More]
The Sad Truth Is That You Can’t Return Postal Kiosk Stamps
By February 6, 2013
You can’t take back stamps. This seems like it would be an obvious thing, but it actually isn’t. Dave was sending an Express Mail package across the country, and used a flat-rate envelope. He bought a regular Express Mail stamp at a post office kiosk, the Automated Postal Center. This combination meant that the envelope, which had needed to be in Seattle the next day, ended up returned to him like he hadn’t put postage on it at all. [More]
My Landlord Raises Rent 1 Penny To Make Up For Postage Increases, Sends Letter To Tell Me
By February 5, 2013
As you may have noticed, the price of stamps went up last week by an entire penny. Overall, the nation seems to be coping pretty well, unless they’re small businesses who have a lot of overseas customers. (Air mail prices went up, too. A lot.) One entity that isn’t coping well is reader Layla’s apartment complex. They’ve raised everyone’s rent one penny to compensate for the postage change, and chose to notify everyone by… delivering a letter to their doors. [More]
Cash-Strapped USPS Raising The Price Of A Stamp By A Penny Starting Sunday
By January 25, 2013
It’s a brand new year but already the cash-strained United States Postal Service is showing that it’s feeling the financial heat that kept zapping it in 2012. Starting on Sunday, the price of a first-class stamp will go from $0.45 to $0.46 as we were warned last year. Post card stamps will also rise a penny to $0.33. Sure, it’s only a penny, but it’s a penny you don’t have to pay on Saturday that you do on Sunday. [More]
U.S. Postal Service Sends My Priority Mail Package 1,688 Miles Out Of Its Way
By January 23, 2013
Tän ordered something on eBay from a vendor who was right in the same metropolitan area. How long can it take for the U.S. Postal Service to transport a package fifteen miles? Eleven days, evidently. Which wouldn’t be so bad if the seller hadn’t used Priority Mail: you know, that service which is supposed to take two or three days to get things across the country, not just across town. [More]
Insider Explains Why FedEx SmartPost Is So Terrible
By November 21, 2012
The overwhelming crappiness of FedEx Smartpost as a shipping method is a frequent topic around here. But why is it so terrible? We could have guessed that a partnership between ostensible rivals FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service might not work so well, but one reader with inside knowledge about why it’s so terrible reached out and shared their knowledge with us. The basic reason? The labels are terrible, and confuse the equipment. [More]
FedEx SmartPost Package Takes A Week To Tour Southern California, Tantalizingly Near My House
By November 13, 2012
Tim’s new shirt from Teefury didn’t have to go very far. It just had to make a short trip across the Los Angeles hypermetroplex. But somehow the eventual delivery service that is FedEx SmartPost couldn’t get the package to go in a straight line, which meant that it took a meandering route around the area. Really, they could have put the shirt in a cardboard tube and rolled it to Tim faster. [More]
Perhaps USPS Wouldn't Be In Such Trouble If It Didn't Have 682 Million Unsold Simpsons Stamps Sitting Around
By August 21, 2012
The United States Postal Service is down in the financial dumps lately, after defaulting for the first time in its history on a $5.5 billion payment it owes the U.S. Treasury. It’s got another payment due for about the same amount next month that it will probably miss as well. That bright idea to produce 1 billion The Simpsons stamps isn’t looking so great right about now, as the USPS reports it only sold 318 million of them. [More]
The U.S. Postal Service Doesn't Want Night Owl Business
By August 20, 2012
Most people occasionally need to mail packages. Most people also have jobs. The U.S. Postal Service is in financial trouble, and desperately needs our package-mailing funds. They’re not about to expand the hours that post offices are open to accommodate office workers, though, so they compromise: post office lobbies are open 24/7 and Automated Postal Centers are ready for your package-mailing needs. Blue mailboxes can only accommodate parcels up to 13 ounces, but you can drop much larger boxes in the package drop at your local post office. In theory. Dan found that this was trickier in practice, when every post office nearby had an operational postage machine, but the package drops were all locked. [More]
Mail Carrier In Big Trouble Because Stealing Checks Sent To Charities Is Definitely Illegal
By August 17, 2012
An ex-mail carrier in suburban Chicago is pleading guilty to pilfering $275,000 in donations that were heading to a charity on his route, after being charged for stealing more than 29,400 pieces of mail in the effort. Perhaps he read his job description as “cash collector” or thought no one would be any the wiser. [More]
USPS Says It Definitely Isn’t Going To Scrounge Up $5.5 Billion To Make Payment By Tomorrow
By July 31, 2012
Remember when we reported that the U.S. Postal Service was thisclose to defaulting for the first time in its history? That deadline for paying the $5.5 billion it owes to the U.S Treasury is due tomorrow, and the agency says it’s just not going to find enough change in the couch cushions to pay it. [More]
