posted on December 29, 2000 12:44:20 PM new
This may be old news to everyone, but I just came across an auction on Ebay to discover that the Seller was the good ol' USPS. Their ABOUT ME page indicates they are in a trial partnership with Ebay and are auctioning all the stuff from their Mail Recovery Centers that was poorly packaged, damaged, otherwise undeliverable. This gave me a bad feeling. Does it bother anyone else?
posted on December 29, 2000 02:53:11 PM new
OK, I understand that the USPS says the majority of stuff they're selling on ebay was undeliverable because of a bad address. And I also understand that stuff that companies send out at bulk rate is usually not returnable.
But, it still seems very strange to check out USPS's auctions and see that a great majority of the items are ones that a known company intended to be delivered to a customer.
For instance, under collectibles, many sets of Hallmark ornaments are listed - these are the ones that are shipped to members of Hallmark's ornament collectors club. It seems odd that instead of paying to have the ornaments (that were undeliverable) returned to them, Hallmark finds it OK that the USPS is auctioning them off.
If you look under the book category, almost all the books are ones that were supposed to go to members of book clubs, especially the kids' ones (Disney, Dr Seuss, Sesame Street, etc.)
These companies must be hugely profitable if they can just let the USPS resell this merchandise, rather than paying the neccessary fees to have it returned to them.
posted on December 29, 2000 03:25:35 PM new
Well Geez, Now I have heard everything! If that darn flask I ordered from Cabelas is one of those auctions I will be spittin mad! The darn PO just delivered an empty priority box, with nothing in it! I better go check.........
posted on December 29, 2000 03:46:04 PM new
I dont find it odd at all these book clubs, music club video clubs hallmark and the like would rather let the USPS auction this stuff off then to pay to have undeliverable goods returned.
There is no profit in paying double post they would have to sell 10 to 15 more Item of the same value to break even on the postage loss alone remember they paid postage one then they would pay to have undeliverable returned then they must reship a new Item to the buyer paying postage again.
These clubs get there Items for pennys on the dollar. and One music club Charge $32.25 postage to ship 12 to 14 cds or cassete tapes they would pay nearly $100 on these by the time they got dont with all the extra postage charges.
video club works about the same on shipping give or take a dollar or two.
there inventory cost are so low because they pay for not only the rights to sell the music but they pay for the rights to reproduce there cost for inventory is the cost of bulk blank cassetes and CDs most video clubs do the same. and employees to make the copys and packing and order filling in there wearhouses.
There cost is usually under .60 each they sell for $10 $14 and up depending on what movie or music is being ordered.
Its simplly cheaper to forget the lost orders and resend new order in the long run
and they still make 50% or more of there planed price.
garentee a good company has 1% or less lost shippments per year and for each they lose someone in shipping and ordering get a bop on the head or gets the boot if it happens to them to offten and they work on better quaility control nagging for month after a big loss
posted on December 29, 2000 04:28:40 PM new
I was sickened by the fact that they auctioned off "lost" items locally, but this is really the last straw.
Don't be suprised that the next time your at the Post Office that you see some clerks ripping open the movie size Priority Mail boxes looking for items to auction.
posted on December 29, 2000 04:44:42 PM new
They don't need a clerk ripping boxes open. They have machines that do it for them just fine. I am just surprised enough is left after the shredding to sell. I wonder if some are a bit damaged as sold?
posted on December 29, 2000 04:49:51 PM new
Whoo-hoo.... looks like a good place to get some items.
I am glad they are posting thier auctions, maybe sneak and get a bargin every now and again.
Ain't Life Grand...
posted on December 29, 2000 05:57:15 PM new
I for one am displeased w/ this site--quite sometime back I stumbled onto their site, and had written them and asked if they could provide United States Gov't Postal Regulation numbers etc to confirm that what they are doing is truly legitimate-Realizing the Gov't does nothing w/o MOUNDS of Paperwork--anyway-I found it almost amusing at the back peddaling response I received--then they e-mailed me and asked me for my phone # so they could call me and explain in detail etc! Well shortly thereafter my AOL crashed I LOST all old mail etc, and never did offer them my phone # --which to this day I still find a VERY ODD REQUEST---I did reply prior to AOL crash & burn that in fact my offering them my phone # was completely unacceptable--but if they would offer there number--I'd be more then happy to call them.... Well I never did hear back from them--CALL Me suspicious--Yep--I will always be suspicious of anyone who claims U.S. Gov't is operating a trial/test selling damaged and unclaimed merchandise especially in PARTNERSHIP with Ebay???????
OOH yea by the way--what I feel prompted seller to ask for my number was after I had asked seller if US Postal Inspector was aware of this TRIAL -- Ha!! Thats when he replied and wanted my phone number!! ?
posted on December 29, 2000 09:44:14 PM new
I'm amazed--and they are doing so well, too! Thanks for posting this thread, LadyGambler.
I see they've been doing this since August. They sure have lots of negatives. I wonder if any are for poor delivery. (Do they use USPS?) Hee hee!
[ edited by mzalez on Dec 29, 2000 09:46 PM ]
posted on December 30, 2000 04:54:33 AM new
Got them all bookmarked, see if one of my so called 'lost' items are being sold!
---------------------------
Not DaMNiT on eBay! ICON, the last change for hope!
posted on December 30, 2000 06:33:31 AM new
You aren't kidding about the shipping costs! I checked out one auction for some decorations, small bunch, and they wanted $5.90 to ship them!!! Ridiculous!
I have to agree I am totally disgusted by this and it takes a lot to make me feel this way. Just something wrong about it. I had a magazine I won sent to me on the 13th and it was lost. I wonder if I will see it show up in their auctions. Grr!
posted on December 30, 2000 07:00:27 AM new
People amaze me.
The USPS goes to great lengths to try to deliver all parcels, including opening the boxes looking for sender or addressee information inside the box. All undeliverable items are forwarded to special handling centers where this work is done. If the mailing label has fallen off or is illegible, what do you want the PO to do? Burn the stuff, or dump it into the ocean, rather then auction it to recover PART of the costs of trying to deliver it?
It is also foolish and mean to suggest that a postal employee would purposely damage or deface a package just to sell it on eBay, since the employee would have absolutely no control over what happened to the item, and the money ultimately goes back into the Postal Service anyway, not the employees pocket. Sheesh! Would you make that unfounded accusation to a postal worker's face?
We all know that postal workers are well paid civil servants, would you be happier if the USPS charged "actual postage only" on these auctions, and paid the employees out of the general fund? Whoever paid the original postage did not pay to have the item sent all over the country, be examined by several employees to try to find the rightful owner, reshipped to a Lost Mail unit, etc. etc.
Believe me, the USPS looses money on these poorly labled and otherwise undeliverable parcels, and conducting eBay auctions is the most efficient way to recover some of those costs.
If you think $5.95 S/H is too high, DON'T BID, just like any other seller's auction.
I remember listening to a great radio show on NPR last year, where employees of the Lost Mail units told great stories about the lengths they go to to deliver these packages. It never occurred to me that these fine folks would become the object of ridicule asnd suspicion, with some people preferring the items be destroyed rather then sold to the highest bidder.
posted on December 30, 2000 08:28:33 AM new
Bull...
From experience, USPS is braindead when it comes to delivering damaged and defaced packages.
I ship books, lots of books and apparently they dropped a box of them and the package was hopelessly lost. For weeks, each individual book was shipped back to me as undeliverable. Want to know how they knew to ship them back to me? In each book was the PO sheet that is sent to me and it has our address inside the folded paper. They were all completely intact. BUT, the ship to address is clearly on the front. They had to completely IGNORE the bold lettered statement "SHIP TO:" then the address to open the piece of paper and get our address. What kind of brain-dead operation is that!
posted on December 30, 2000 08:57:27 AM new
I wonder why the USPS doesn't mention the Ebay auctions on their website? If you look at "auctions", only the geographical sites are shown, no Ebay listed.
As to the "fine folks" at the Post Office, I admit I have met a few. I also know of one who harassed a friend, requiring her to move and reinstall her mailbox at least four times simply because the postal delivery person had a personal dislike of my friend, (in a very small rural area).
I know of people who cannot even be considered for a job as a mail delivery person or for a job in the post office because only the family members of people who already work for the post office are considered, (again in a rural area). Some of them are my family members so this isn't just a guess.
My own mail often goes to another home which has the numbers 15 in the address and my address has the numbers 51 in the address, numerous calls have not resolved this problem, and I don't expect any changes.
My husband saw the mail carrier accidently knock the lid completely off our mailbox, she was driving a USPS mail truck. Instead of an apology, the next day we got a nasty note saying the mail could not be delivered until we fixed the mailbox (which she broke).
Calling supervisors, managers, etc. was of no use. Even obtaining a telephone number to our local post office was impossible as complaints are now forwarded from a central location, and this is a hit-and-miss situation.
Filling out complaint cards never brought a response, talking to my local post office manager elicited promises of "this will stop", etc. but somehow nothing was ever done.
I suppose I shouldn't say nothing was ever done, at least the mail carrier hasn't torn up our mailbox lately.
Edited to say - I now live in the big city, not in the small rural area.
posted on December 30, 2000 08:58:53 AM new
Chipguy,
Any chance you (or a close family member/friend) work for USPS?
Postal workers vary, just as workers in any industry.
My mailman is an absolute gem and I wouldn't trade him for anyone in the world. My local post office is another story. The workers are rude and antagonistic. I have watched them literally "fling" my packages several feet into their package bin, despite the "fragile" marking on the package. It reminded me of playing basketball. As a result, I exclusively use the post office in the city where I work. These workers are wonderful! (Very helpful and friendly, too).
It really bothers me to think that USPS will make very nice profits due the mishandling of packages that were not intended for them to profit from. It's almost like it gives them some incentive to treat our packages like $#^%. While I realize that no individual postal employee will receive immediate/direct financial rewards as a result of Ebay sales, when USPS does well, so do the employees. There might certainly be indirect rewards which result from these sales. It just seems wrong. While I realize there are many honest and dedicated postal employees out there, we would be blind to not realize there are many who are not, or who just don't care. Now what to do with all of those packages? How about donating the goods to charities?
posted on December 30, 2000 09:10:31 AM new
One other thing - I know the USPS is supposedly now a private corporation of some sorts, but they fall under the Executive Branch of the United States government.
Aren't there some regulations about governmental and quasi/governmental entities directly competing with private business - undercutting their prices, etc.?
posted on December 30, 2000 09:22:34 AM new
What would you have them do, if you don't want them to sell the items? Create warehouses to keep the stuff they can't return? Donate them to goodwill (no, that wouldn't work - people are complaining about the high prices at goodwill's website as well!)?
posted on December 30, 2000 09:33:31 AM new
Glenda - They already sell the items at auctions in about four different places, all listed on their website.
However, those auctions were/are competing with other brick & mortar auctions, not Ebay sellers who are already a pretty fair revenue source for the USPS.
posted on December 30, 2000 09:42:58 AM new
[i]Chipguy,
Any chance you (or a close family member/friend) work for USPS? [/i]
No. I'm just a citizen, an eBay seller, and a $10,000 per year USPS postage customer.
Postal workers vary, just as workers in any industry.
Exactly, which is why anecdotal stories about returned books and so forth have no real value, except to agitate others.
Fact is, the Postal Service does try very hard to deliver all items, and for every story about one postal worker who threw some spilled books into a "return to sender" bin instead of a "resort" bin, there is another story about a postal worker who went way out of their way to find the person the parcel was intended for.
If every crooked or incompetant eBay seller reflected on the rest of us, the way some people seem to think a newbie, incompetant, or crooked postal worker reflects on the entire USPS, we would all be out of business.
The real issue is that the Postal Service ends up with tens of thousands of undeliverable parcels ever month (yes, a few of them may actually be deliverable, they are human, after all), and what should they do with them? Burn them, or dump them into the sea, so as to avoid the appearance of impropriety?
They have traditonally auctioned the items in limited local markets, paying the live auctioneer a 20% or higher commission. With the advent of online auctions, they are experimenting with using eBay to offer the items to a worldwide market, and using USPS staff to conduct the auctions and do the shipping.
Makes sense to me, I want the USPS to be as efficient as possible, although some people seem to prefer that perfectly good items be destroyed rather than auctioned.
Amazing how latent animosity for the Postal Service can overcome common sense.
You admit that no individual postal worker will directly benefit from the auctioning of an item that might have been deliverable with a little more effort, but still think that these people might send a package off to the deald parcel office on some off chance that they might get a bigger raise in the future? How cynical is that? Especially since the workers that actually make the decisions are in the the "lost in Mail" units, not the local PO's. Your fear makes no sense at all.
As far as donating the items to charity, rather than converting them to revenue to keep overall costs down, which charities? In which cities? In what ratios?
"Here, United Way, here's 653 rock & roll CD's, and 1175 paperback books. Please distribute them to the needy".
Government agencies auctioning surplus inventory and merchandise has been SOP for decades, the USPS is only doing the most efficient thing to keep costs (and rates) down. You seem to think that the USPS is making a profit from these auciotns, the truth is the auction income only goes to partially recoup the costs of dealing with these misaddressed parcels. There is no profit, only a smaller loss.
posted on December 30, 2000 09:54:30 AM new
The answer is FED-EX ground. I shipped a 11 pound package to Florida yesterday by FED-EX. It cost $7.85 including the built in insurance, and they picked it up. This same package at current USPS rates would have cost $16.50 without insurance, and I would have to take it to the PO.
My customers through me paid my local post office over $17,000.00 in postage this year. The PO will receive none in 2001. I have already informed by local PO manager that they have lost my business. Not only because of the coming rate increase but also for lousy service.
Thursday I received a piece of mail that had a "we are sorry for the damage our machinery caused" sticker on it. The envelope had been cleanly slit and the contents removed. I contacted the sender who is one of my customers. The envelope had contained a money order payment for an item he won on Yahoo. He has contacted the place where he purchased the MO to stop payment on it.
This is just one example of the many problems I have had with the PO. I have a real problem in giving an organization a raise when the quality service is in decline.
