OK, Sue, Take a slow deep breath. In through your mouth, out through nose.

Do this a couple of times to calm down.

Feel better?

Now what's with the bad news?

Fran

1--The bad news is that the local postmaster who has been so helpful in the past is no longer there. He is no longer employed by the USPS....sigh

2--This AM I called about making an appointment with the person in charge. I spoke with the 'officer in charge'. When I asked his name, he gave me his first name, and would not give me his last name. Why would he have refused me that info?

3--I explained that I had several padded mailers that I had received in and they were unopened, and the customers who had sent them had been overcharged. I was wanting to bring them in, and have him (or anyone for that matter) inspect them and determine that they had indeed been overcharged. I explained that I then wanted a signed piece of paper saying that they were overcharged. He said he could not help me and gave me the telephone number of Consumer Affairs in Louisville. Well, I know from talking to someone down there a while back that there was at that time no Consumer Affairs Manager and that NO ONE was even an acting manager. gggrrrrrrrr........

4--This week I received in a bubblie from Williamsport OH 46134 that was overcharged. It weighed .7 OZ yet was charged $1.05, which is for a 2 OZ large envelope. That means that either the clerk failed to weigh it, or else their scale needs calibration, thus is overcharging a lot of customers. I got a tel# for that PO, and when I called it, I get a non working # recording.........ggggrrrrrrr.........shot down on getting that done.

5--I was on the phone probably 30 minutes or so this AM with the USPS complaint #, getting 3 separate complaints filed. I have the confirmation numbers on all 3 of them and someone is supposed to call me back within 2 business days. Yeah right. I'm not holding my breath on that one. On the one report that was filed for overcharge, I have asked that the overcharge be sent to me. I wonder how they are going to handle that.

shall I go on?

Anyway, I this AM I learned about Restricted Delivery. Below is the info on that.

Restricted Delivery
Be sure your mail gets into the right hands.
When you want your mail to reach a specific recipient, use Restricted Delivery.

Sometimes, you might have private or highly classified documents that you require to be seen only by the addressee. Restricted Delivery ensures that your mail is only delivered to the person you specify, or to the person authorized in writing to sign for intended recipient.

I just checked and the cost on a 13 OZ First Class Parcel, sent Certified, with Restricted Delivery signature and signed receipt of the person that accepted it being sent back to me would be less than $11. The exact amount escapes me now. What a bargain, huh, if the Parcel gets to someone who does their job?

I have started to compose my letter to
The Honorable John E. Potter..but will have to abandon that until I am feeling better.

Postmaster General
U.S. Postal Service
475 L'Enfant Plaza, SW
Washington, DC 20260-0010

I also found an email address for him this AM, not that anyone would even really read any of the complaint emails and actually respond. I found the addy at the Answers.com site, so don't put much faith in it being up to date or valid.
E-mail: pmgceo@usps.gov

Light bulb moment. I can try taking in the overcharged envelopes, (one at a time might be best) along with an email from the member who sent them and they can authorize me to file for and collect the overcharged amount. I would think that would generate paperwork and that paperwork could then be used as additional evidence (proof) of the 2 year 9 month old problems of post offices across the US overcharging.

I have never been over charged anything that ever amounted to much or that really bothered me, but I can imagine if I'd been doing this as much as you have that this would really get to me. It gets more and more expensive and more complicated just to send the littlest thing in the mail these days.

So sorry that your helpful post master is gone. I hope that you can find someone new to help you resolve these issues. Keep us updated. ;)

Thanks quilt_mommy. I sure will miss my pleasant, friendly, knowledgeable, and responsible postmaster and am sure lots of others in the community will too.

This overcharging has been going on since May 2007 when they first went to the new Shape Based Pricing. A lot of members have consistently been charged First Class Parcel Rate as opposed to what they should have maybe been charged of Large Envelope rate. While that just amounts to an additional 34 cents on an trade envelope, it is an additional 68 cents on 'seeds for postage' offer where the member pays the postage both ways.

I've read of members no longer trading because the postage was so high, especially if they were consistently overcharged. Others maybe don't trade as often due to postage being an issue.

I've written the Postmaster General and hopefully the email will arrive and be responded to by some responsible USPS employee. It seems there not many of them to be found these days....sigh I expect I will get some sort of a form letter, explaining how to file a complaint on line or via an 800 #. That's worthless at getting the nationwide problem fixed once and for all.

Sue

Well Sue I was twitching before reading your post. I just don't know what to think.
I'm beginning to think their all a bunch of ignorant douche bags.
jim_6b

LMAO...Jim, are you aware that you posted that here at The Seed Exchange on the Conversation side. You're not at The Test Forum you know.

Hey, I'm feeling a bit better. I sent the email to Honorable John E. Potter, and carbon copied it to 2 email addresses I still have for Consumer Affairs in Louisville. They no longer respond to my emails, or return my calls, (I noted that in the email too). The one email addy is for the Previous Consumer Affairs Manager. The last I heard she was no longer in that position, and no one had been assigned to her position, but I thought she might enjoy a copy of the email anyway...

Is there no one running that ship? People of authority are no longer there and no one replaces them. The next time I email The Honorable John E. Potter, I will let him know I am for hire to take an independent survey of postal workers and what they charge or to do some test mailings across the US. I think the poor results would be a real eye opening shock to them.

Oh Jim, I'm still laughing and your description is actually quite polite, considering what my husband has said about them and actually told them.

This really has gone on way to long and gotten way out of hand and control.

Sue, It does appear that no on has been "running the ship", since all this started except the "real head honcho" that cries poor mouth, running in the red, can't go on without a rate increase, threatens to close post offices, cut out one day of delivery."

In reality, one really wonders here, at least those of us that trade seeds and do BEAP offers, if the claims are true, can they actually add and do the math, do they have any idea where the money is going, how much money they really do have?

So time marches on and no matter what we do, this stupidity continues.

Sue is handling the e-mail side, I'm going to try a couple of other ideas and see if we can all live long enough for something to be done about this.

Just this past week alone, I've gotten 10 Bubble envelopes to fill for a BEAP offer and every single one of them had a postal print out stamp from the post office for $1.22. that's an overcharge of $.34 postage on each one.

In each of them was a return address label, 2 or 3 $.44 postage stamps, depending on the number of seed packets I was sending, an 8 1/2 x 11 inch piece of paper with a list of seeds on it and that was it.

I's got to end.

I'm trying to do something, so wish both Sue and I luck.

Fran

pleasant, friendly, knowledgeable, and responsible postmaster and

those are grounds for termination from what I hear.

This is also why nobody wants to give out coffee grounds.

" carbon copied "

Those of us old enough to remember actually USING carbon paper to CC somebody understand what CC means.

They gotta figure out a new acronym for that.

Sue,
Realistically, I think it would take legal action in the form of a class action lawsuit to even have a chance at working and NOBODY has enough money to pay the legal fees. I understand your twitching and everything, but, seriously, You need to switch to decaf.

:)

hmmm...I'm wondering if it would be legal to picket some of these post offices that claim that all padded mailers must go as and be charged as parcels? A placard could just state the facts. If done in a metropolitan area, one could alert the media before picketing so they could pick up the story. That might get the word out there on a big time basis...thoughts?

I might need to take a little vacation in the spring and slate visits to real problem POs and a nice arboretum or two.

I understand your twitching and everything, but, seriously, You need to switch to decaf.
I remember that shortly after Dave Letterman had his heart attack (I think it was) and he was drinking decaf because of his DR's orders. He likened the decaff coffee to drinking warm p***. Those are my sentiments exactly.

I found out too that another nice postmaster at another local PO is gone too and instead they have an 'officer in charge', whatever that is.

I wonder if the PO has gotten so hard to work for, that the good employees are either retiring, quitting, or taking lower positions.

Sue