Post Office Box Rule

snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net said the following on 30/04/2008 16:52:

It should go to court and have the Postal Services nose rubbed in the dirt.

Maybe Mr. Adler should just get a knife and scratch one or two of the letters first or failing that, get a jar of lubricant, send it to the Postal Services head office and tell them where to stick the box.

They were turned inside-out so there was no lettering showing. I've often had "Priority Mail" boxes sent to me in England that way.

(kim)

How did the PO know they were priority boxes when they were turned inside out? I wonder whether the USPS hqtrs. warned him not to use the boxes, or was it just a local postmaster/postmistress?

there seems to be a lot of unproffesional and arbitrary bullshit in some po's. one here needs to be publically terminated for assholism.

snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net said the following on 30/04/2008 16:52:

If any of my stuff has to go by ship I might mess with their heads and paste this logo on;

i'm digitizing a rather extensive record collection for a friend and we use the same boxes over and over. the major reason is that the boxes the po sells are really overpriced. we also have asshole clerks who are ALWAYS there. we paste cd label leftover sticky parts over any signs of prior use. one of said clerks is working up to cardiac arrest when he sees them. i hope to see it. the ps sucks donkey shlong.

except that nothing from the usps goe by sea anymore. or so they claim.

the flat rate cubes are great. i grab as many as they have just to piss off the counter monkeys.

hehe. how many times did we reuse that box? i hope you saved it, it has at least one more rt in it. the last record box from ma was about 35lbs of vinyl and 10 lbs of box, tape, stickers and bubble wrap. and sent media mail. the counter monkeys really hate that.

Some of those people have the frickin' dimensions memorised. I tried that once and got it rejected even though it was inside-out. The clerk 'knew'.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

Ah, but they come free. Thusly, every box not used properly has cost them money. I know one model car seller who uses the freebie boxes and ships UPS.

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

That last one to arrive here had more tape than paper surface. It was a major engineering feat to find a way in. :)

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

Here's what is chapping the post office's ass - right after they came out with the free boxes they found that people and a lot of small online businesses were getting the boxes and inverting them - then taking them down to UPS and giving them their business. An official action figure collector's club (no names here) got nailed with a warning (at least) a few years ago when they were caught inverting USPS freebie boxes, stuffing their member's collector figure shipments in 'em and trapsing down to UPS with them. From what I recall it was one pissed off collector and club member that spotted the misdeed and called the USPS - who take it very seriously I am told and one fella in Denver can confirm.

The USPS remedied this by printing their name and logo inside the boxes - but the last shipments I have received from them are plain. They may have been old boxes, but I've reordered quite a few times, I don't see how. The new boxes are red and I have yet to order any, so it would be interesting to see if they are marked inside.

As for how can you tell they are USPS boxes if they are inverted and lack the internal printing? I have inverted a few and the distinctive ribbing and color is easy to spot - even easier I imagine if you're a USPS employee. Why did I invert them? Well not to take them to UPS, that's for sure. I used them for the old USPS Air Parcel Post, a service which they unfortunately did not provide a box. The word at the local counter was the Sgt Schultz disclaimer - "I know nothing, I see nothing". It was probably breaking the rules, but USPS still got the business - and at a higher rate than domestic USPS. But again, I was probably technically breaking a law.

The new Priority Mail boxes are now predominantly red, but regardless of whether they are old or new you may now use them for the new Priority Air international shipping - no more inverting. So the USPS has acknowledged that one aspect of their rule was rather short sighted.

Basically, the USPS provided a nice service and product and as could be expected, a few people tweaked the rules and others just flat out abused them. That's got them rankled over the boxes now. As for the guy in the article, it appears that the USPS is claiming lifetime rights on the boxes. I was thinking the box costs would be satisfied on a one time use when shipping Priorty Mail (and I'm sure they are), but they appear to be looking at it differently. If they try to claim that they calculated covering the box costs on one or two shipments per box I would have to call - "bullshit!". It's unlikely anyone would have factored in boxes being used more than once and amortizing the costs across several shipments.

In a perfect world or at Walgreens, I suppose.

I'm just glad I don't have to invert them anymore when shipping overseas. It wasn't difficult, but it's one less thing to muck around with. IF they want to really do something I wish they would offer some bigger sizes. Something to hold a big Monogram 1/48th WWII bomber kit would scratch my last itch.

WmB

If you GIVE something away then ownership is relinquished so it doesn't matter what it's used for after that (even parcel bombs) or you say that it's not being given away but on loan with a proviso, like software licenses.

A friend wrapped his box in brown paper before posting to me so there was nothing to give away its origin except as mentioned its overall dimensions.

(kim)

I wish PayPal would "know" the measurements of the standard PM boxes. Entering the dimensions of your box is an annoying little detail that you now HAVE to fill out when buying your postage thru them. Why can't we just put in the number on the side of the PM box ?!

M. J. Rudy

don''t buy the brown wrapping paper from Ikea. its almost see thru. my priority boxes went thru just fine, but I think in the future I will buy the better stuff.

Craig

i use paper bags from the supermarket. tell them paper and plastic and you have a ready source of strong wrapping paper. cut into sheets, put the logo inside and whoa la. store bought wrapping paper is crappy.