My company shipped a package to a customer in California. The customer goofed and gave us her home address, which has no mail box, instead of her PO Box. The package (sent Priority) got returned to us as undeliverable. Now the local post office is telling us for us to pick the package up, we first need to pay $27, which covers the return. Is this a thing? I’ve never heard of the post office charging for undeliverable mail.
I try to keep up with postal regs as a seller online, are you certain it’s Priority or 1st class? That is one downside to less expensive classes of mail, there is no free return if undeliverable. Also see if they will just paste the correct address on a label and deliver it?
First Class mail (normal 63¢ stamp) includes both Forwarding or Return to Sender, if needed. Other mail does not. Like if you send 3rd class bulk mail, you have to mark on it if you want those extra services (like Forwarding, Return to Sender, Address Correction, etc.) and you (the sender) get charged for each piece of mail that gets one of those services.
So Priority Mail doesn’t include return to sender?
Priority Mail parcels do include return service.
That’s why I asked if you are certain it is a priority mail parcel. USPS does make mistakes. But that one is less likely.
Sometimes people will try to use a priority mail box, without purchasing priority mail postage. That will get their attention, at least on a return.
See what’s what, if it’s truly a priority label postage paid package, see if they will let you put the correct delivery address on it, and send it back to them. It sounds more like somebody has to fork over the $27 though.
I’ve shipped a ton of small/medium packages with first class and Priority Mail and have never had this problem. We’ve had a handfull of packages returned and they just get delivered back to us with the problem written on the package. Maybe the $27 is the cost for them to ship it again?
No, they wouldn’t even give it to us without ponying up $27. I told them to screw it and never picked it up. I just boxed up a new order and shipped it out.
If this is a real policy rather than a mistake it will be interesting to see what happens to all these unclaimed packages.
It’s funny but I can’t find anything saying that this is a policy of the USPS, not on their site or any other place talking about the organization. From what I can tell, this isn’t following their regular policies.
Returned packages are returned, not held hostage. I’d have asked them where it’s posted that you need to pay money to get back a returned package. Besides, what are they going to do with it? Waste space holding it indefinitely? Auction it off? None of that sounds right.
I’ve never been impressed with this particular post office, especially the clerk who is usually on-duty there. I half suspect she’s just a ripe asshole who doesn’t know her teeth from tonsils.
Worse yet, this smells to like an attempt at extorting cash they would pocket, rather than any kind of legitimate but unpublished fee.
Well no, that’s just it. Postage due is postage due, whether a small envelope or a big package.
First Class and Priority parcels cost more to send than say, Media Mail or Parcel Post. One of the reasons is because there is no free return service on those classes of mail. Nor any insurance. This is ordinarily no big deal - unless a customer refuses delivery, or it is undeliverable. Then it can be a big deal. Media Mail is subject to inspection - they’ll open it up and look inside. Oddly enough, I would not send a rare or valuable book via Media Mail for that reason. Too many stories of the item being inspected and not wrapped up well again, and the item being lost.
Another issue is when someone opens a package, something that is already damaged or they don’t want. “Return To Sender” doesn’t work. If the package has been opened, it needs new postage, new label, the whole nine yards.
They can even come back weeks later and “update” (in eBay parlance) shipping charges. I don’t know how it works exactly, or who does it. Some clerk, some where. They claimed a box was 2” longer than it was, and I owed them $2.63 or something, which they dutifully collected. Now it is true dimensions must be rounded up to the nearest inch. I knew that already, so the clerk in question needs to get a new tape measure. Plus, who do you call to argue about $2.63 ? I-800-Call-USPS ? LOL
To be fair, I did get a refund last week for postage over payment, about $2 or so. To my way of thinking this should have been refunded to the buyer, not I, but now everything is square with the United States Postal Circus.
Well no, of course they aren’t going to give it to you without paying the $27, that’s kind of the whole point. They think you owe them $27, but that can’t be the case if it was priority mail.
The peach colored paper slip they left notice with. What block is checked? Does it indicate “Priority Mail”? Something happened, maybe somebody opened it, whatever. I bet you could have ‘splained it to the clerk. They don’t like being proved wrong by lesser, mere mortals though.
I think I would ask to speak to the postmaster and ask the postmaster to clarify. Unless this is something new I’ve never ever heard of the post office asking for money on a returned package.
No, it isn’t anything “new”, although I understand your point. One of the reasons a priority mail package costs what it does is because return service is automatically included in that level of service. Ordinarily nobody notices this kind of thing unless they are on the receiving end and it boomerangs back. Parcel Post (or whatever the kids are calling it these days) is less expensive for a reason. I learned to pay close attention to eBAy because of the way their policies treat sellers and returns. If I send something large/heavy across the country it costs a lot, but the buyer pays for that. However if I cheap out and don’t purchase a level of postage including return service, I am completely hosed if the buyer is unscrupulous. There are several ways I can get behind the 8 ball on that, it’s something to beware of.
That’s why I can pretty much say with complete confidence in this situation it is either not a priority parcel, or they made a mistake.
In a situation like this you can ask to see the package at the post office, they won’t let you handle it but they will let you look at it. The pink slip they leave in the mailbox asking for money has a box for re-delivery and $$ collection, they will even bring it out to you. Assuming it IS a priority parcel, then you can point out the error of their postal ways.
Did you go to the PO , ask to speak to the Postmaster, and show him that it was sent Priority mail?
Did you use Priority Mail? I notice you have not confirmed this.
With the way PO security works, that is close to impossible.
I did. But at this point i don’t care anymore. We reshipped with a new product and left the returned package at the PO. I don’t really have time to argue with the clerk or postmaster about it.
Thank you for all the input!
I guess we’ll never know.
https://faq.usps.com/s/article/What-is-the-USPS-Mail-Recovery-Center
Undeliverable mail determined to be of value, meaning the content is worth more than $25.00 ($20.00 for mailpieces containing cash), will be held for 60 days if the mailpiece is barcoded, or 30 days for non-barcoded mailpieces.
Occasionally, the MRC will auction off the items held. More information on upcoming auctions, including locations and directions, can be found at United States Postal Service® auctions.
Email or call the postmaster. I’ve had generally good results when I do that.
Aha, so they do auction them off. Alrighty then.