The U.S. Postal Service has made the process of changing your address when you move super easy and convenient, by just filling out a form online and paying $1. Maybe that’s not so good, though: The process is so easy that an identity thief can redirect your mall to their address by just filling out a form online and paying $1. [More]
post office
Consumerist Friday Flickr Finds
By 2.3.17
Here are seven of the best photos that readers added to the Consumerist Flickr Pool in the last week, picked for usability in a Consumerist post or for just plain neatness. [More]
USPS Proposes Price Increase For Postcards, International Mail; Cost Of First-Class “Forever” Stamps Unchanged
By 1.16.15
The United States Postal Service’s quest for financial stability might be hitting consumers’ pocketbooks come April if the agency’s proposed price increases gets the go-ahead. [More]
Why A Village With 500 Residents Mails More Than 10,000 Christmas Cards From Its Post Office Every Year
By 12.10.14
How is it possible that in a village that boasts a population of only about 500 people sends more than 10,000 Christmas cards from its post office every year? Is it because each person in town has 20 friends? Or is it because the town has something special to do with Christmas? [More]
Neighborhood Residents Can’t Get Mail Delivered Because Of One Chihuahua
By 4.3.14
In the latest round of that ancient fight between man and beast that is the tense relationship mail carriers have with residents’ dogs, a Chihuahua (to be fair, a Chihuahua mix) is effectively holding one neighborhood hostage. The United States Postal Service says the local mail carrier can’t deliver mail to a block in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, because the little dog’s reign of terror makes it impossible to do so. [More]
The USPS Spent $180,000 On An Empty Post Office Over Six Years
By 3.10.14
In case you haven’t heard, the United States Postal Service has been in some troubled financial waters in the last few years, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars it owes the government in payments to its employee pension system. And so the fact that it spent $180,000 on a closed post office for five years must, well, sting the agency a little bit. [More]
My Post Office Stacks Mailed Packages On Lobby Floor, Shrugs
By 2.3.14
Reader C. visited the post office recently, and what he saw upset him. The good news was that his post office was doing brisk business. It was early in the morning still, but it received a lot of packages. The bad news was that these packages were piled on the floor in the lobby. [More]
Postal Regulatory Commission Chairman: Helping Customers Through The Mega-Bureaucracy Of The Mail Since 1998
By 1.31.14
The post office might be one of the most incomprehensible bureaucracies in the country. It is, on the one hand, a massive network spanning every state, county, and city in the nation. It is also, on the other hand, hyper-local: for most of us, letter carriers literally come right up to the front door six days a week. [More]
United States Postal Service Dropping Saturday Mail Delivery Starting Aug. 1
By 2.6.13
Your mailbox is going to feel a bit empty starting next summer, as the United States Postal Service is going to cut Saturday delivery in a move designed to save the agency $2 billion a year. Partly because it didn’t want to continue waiting around for Congress to do something to help dig it out of its financial hole, beginning Aug. 1 the weekends will be mail-free, although packages will still be delivered on Saturdays. [More]
My Landlord Raises Rent 1 Penny To Make Up For Postage Increases, Sends Letter To Tell Me
By 2.5.13
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]
The U.S. Postal Service Doesn't Want Night Owl Business
By 8.20.12
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]
We're Sorry, Your Delicious Package Of Treats Was Intercepted By Post Office Rats
By 12.20.11
Rodents make the worst postal workers, especially when delicious, edible holiday treats are involved. One post office in Manhattan had a few rats and/or mice working over packages before they reached their intended destinations, resulting in a holiday surprise of a different kind. [More]
My USPS Package Took A California Vacation, Didn't Invite Me Along
By 9.22.11
Using the U.S. Postal Service’s Priority Mail, Justin mailed a gift from his home in New York City to a friend in Georgia. Package tracking meant that he was able to follow the gift’s journey and make sure it arrived safely. He was baffled, though, when the tracking information stated that it first traveled out to California for no reason, then made its way back to Georgia, eleven days later than anticipated. Where it was then delivered to the wrong person. In a different town. No one knows where the package actually ended up. [More]
USPS: We'll Be Out Of Money By October
By 3.3.11
USPS is in crisis mode, stuck in an unsustainable business model that threatens to run the service into the ground by the end of the fiscal year in October. [More]
Watch Out For FedEx SmartPost
By 12.23.09
Cristiana says beware the trap of sending things via FedEx SmartPost: the USPS handles the local part of delivery, and “since you now have two shipping companies involved, nobody wants to take responsibility for the package” when it never arrives. [More]
Kill Slightly Fewer Trees By Leaving Junk Mail Lists
By 12.13.09
Thanks to e-mail and online bill payments, mailboxes are a lot less personal than they used to be. According to WalletPop, each week, the average American receives 1.5 pieces of mail they might actually be interested in (yes, including bills), but 16 pieces of junk mail. Evidently, “OCCUPANT” is a pretty popular guy. But when unwanted solicitations are 90% of what’s in our mailboxes, why do they keep on coming? How can you make them stop? [More]
North Pole, Alaska Will Answer Letters To Santa After All
By 12.3.09
Letters that children mail to “Santa Claus, North Pole” will be destined for North Pole, Alaska after all, and the letters personally answered by dedicated volunteers. The program was initially shut down for logistical reasons, but restored after Rudolph paid a visit to Fairbanks and taught everyone the true meaning of Christmas. Or something like that. [More]
U.S. Postal Service Tests Post Office Greeting Card Sales
By 10.29.09
One of the few things that people still use the U.S. Postal Service to do is send greeting cards. Americans receive an average of 20 greeting cards per year, and they have to come from somewhere. So why not save a trip and buy those cards right at your local post office?
