What Can Be Done About The USPS Vandals?

A dealer from eBay sent me a package and chose nice stamps to put on it... and then came the United States' Postal Incompetent Service Staff and did what you see in the scan.
Isn't there a way to prevent that? Can't a philatelic organization turn to them and ask them not to do so?
On one hand they encourage stamp collecting, but on the other hand they brutalize them this way.
I get why they do it, but who nowadays reuses stamps?

Quite a lot of people, I suspect, given the queries I had about unfranked stamps within kiloware lots I sold on eBay.

Plenty talked about here - just search for "Marker Monkey". I received an APS circuit a week ago and the sender had mailed it with several airmail stamps depicting US landscapes. All destroyed with a Sharpie.


Peter

It is always disappointing to receive something like this. Since it is non-machinable, the sender should have nicely asked the mail clerk to hand cancel it. I have found that they will almost always do this. Still, that doesn't guarantee that someone else won't come along with a marker or ball point pen to spoil your day.

From the standpoint of the defacer, he/she is protecting revenue...just doing what they are supposed to do.

If someone here is a member of one of the big US philatelic organizations, cant they initiate a plea not to do so?
Why can't they cancel it, or, if they want something to encourage collectors, to implement a new "cancelation of lack of cancelation". It will be a new topic to collect (more money for them, FDC and so), and it will be less barbaric.

I suggest that you remind senders to ask for good solid cancels. I have several very lightly cancelled packages that later were "marked by the monkey".

What frustrates me even more than the marker monkeys is when the stamps get shredded by the USPS machinery. I don't have any examples to show you, since I generally just chuck those into the recycling bin.

It all considered revenue protection.

Easy fix for this. When your sender is mailing a package and using stamps ask him to take a piece of clear plastic and a roll of tape with him to the P.O. After the stamps are cancelled, put the plastic over them and tape around the edges. Mail.

And when you get your package plastered with nicely cancelled high values or souvenir sheets, you will be a happy camper, uh, collector.

Mike

I am writing my Congressman forthwith.

The way to prevent it is to get the sender to stand in line and have a clerk cancel the package. This means getting a shipper to waste up to a half hour for you. I'm very sure that the packages attacked by marker monkeys are those dropped at the front counter or put in the parcel receptacle.

The Israel PO did you no favors, either.

Very true. One of the benefits of buying discounted stamps is the minimising of queuing in the post office. Most of my stuff goes into the pillar box round the corner from my house. The larger items I hand to the man at the general shop counter while buying my milk and bread.

hi brazil, if you refer to the white sticker on the upper right corner, it was glued only at the top, not on the stamps.
As you can see, none of the stamps were canceled, and it's the same with the other packages I received from him. I think that the white sticker on the left is how he paid.
Yes, dealers could make more effort, but isn't it time to make the USPS change their attitude? And who's better to make that change than some of the bedrock philatelists here that must have connections and power to influence the USPS?

Is it cruel than Lebanese Postal Service?

One is generally not going to get cancels unless it gets handed to a counter clerk. And there is no guarantee that the cancels will not get smudged or the stamps will not be damaged along the way. Package handling leaves much to be desired these days.



It doesn't work like that here. The only evident outside influence that the USPS has is by bulk mailers of advertising, aka junk mailers; Amazon; and members of the US Congress, quite a few of whom would like to see the postal system privatized under the delusion that it would help normal citizens. Further, the USPS very much prefers to create and handle metered mail and really only wants to sell stamps to collectors where they will not be used.

It now usually takes 5-6 days for letter mail from large cities in Florida to get to large cities in California. It goes by airplane, and transit time took 3+ days not very many years ago. I do not want this travel time to take even longer if you want all parcels nicely cancelled.

I like the idea of bedrock philatelists, though. Just wondering which of our members are Fred, Barney and Dino ...