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USPS Is Broken

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Categories: Rants; Experiences and daily life

Word count/read time: 518 words; 2 minutes

Locally, a non-profit thought they scored a windfall on postage stamps. Turns out they were counterfeit. Maybe the 1/3 pricing should have been a warning, maybe not. A good deal is hard to ignore. Instead of shutting down the website, USPS threatened the non-profit organization with criminal charges for using bogus stamps but turned it into a "learning opportunity" instead.

With so many to pick from, the USPS is arguably the most inept, inefficient, and incompetent government or quasi-government agency. Never have I seen it so bad by a long shot. The current head of this faltering and grossly mismanaged agency only accelerated the process. Someone with no experience running such an organization should not be its director. The problems continue to balloon. To say the organization is a clusterfuck would be a gross understatement!

An ignorant citizen would think the fraud investigation division has a purpose, like preventing known scammers from operating and punishing them. You'd hope they would do something instead of just looking into it because that is a blowoff. (Evidence the fact that the website "allegedly" selling fake stamps is still in operation.)

What exactly does the fraud division do? Nothing from what I can tell. Like a concerned consumer trying to do my part to combat the rampant fraud, I file a formal report every time it happens. With all the scams and liars on ebay alone, it seems never ending. Postal fraud is a felony and sending a package that is not as described is postal fraud.

At several hundred, perhaps a thousand, reports to date I have NEVER been asked for additional information, NEVER seen anything happen to these sellers even with incontrovertible proof they defrauded the system. The revenue that could be generated from fines and whatnot would easily pay for however many inspectors they dedicated to the task and more. It would also help offset the frequent, unprecedented, and asinine postage rates increases.

I would think that being convicted of a felony would discourage repeat offenders and make first-timers think twice. Surely social media would be flooded with stories of how people were "wrongly prosecuted." A crime is still a crime regardless of how ignorant the perp is. They 100% brought it upon themselves by either not doing their homework or through intentional malice.

Not only are customers losing money to the criminals but everyone has to pay higher prices to ship their items as a result of the insurance claims (and, naturally, the inefficiency and waste of the system). Indirectly - or more accurately, directly - USPS mismanagement is supplementing and/or supporting the scammers' income.

Then there are professional scammers who milk the system. I have encountered many of them. They include those who are grossly negligent and pack items without any peanuts, bubble wrap, or padding in boxes too small. Sometimes they don't even use boxes at all! They file claims to get reimbursed for the damage...unless it is me on the other end and then it becomes a much bigger problem for them. In reality, nothing ever comes of it because, again, the USPS is broken.

Posted by M: Februrary 7, 2024

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